credit union 1 credit union anchorage Alaska
on January 20, 2017 a check for $3,100 was recalled for being a bad check. I went to my bank at wells fargo to find out what happened since they orginallly cleared the check as good to find out it was a fraudulnt check.
I was offered work from a company called 3M to do data entry from home and they sent the "cashiers check" for the software I was supposed to get with it. I found out on the 20th this is now a popluar scam. I am still trying to fix my bank account.
When Wells Fargo and I called the alaska bank about this check and what was going on we were informed that they had "a stack of the exact same check and they knew about the fraud being done through their bank". When asked by the bank manager why there had not been a bolo (warning) sent out to all banks to not cash this "cashiers check" so that it would not keep happening, the bank said it was "not their problem, that people should know what a real cashier's check should look like". The wells fargo manager was upset as was I that this could have been all avoided if there had been an alert prior so that we could stop these fraud checks.
I know that NO alert still has been set into place from this credit union still and I am positive that the same check with this banks name, address and routing number are still circulating even now.
All the banks should be informed and the people like me looking for work should know what is going on. if the credit union is not going to be responsible enough to inform all the other potential bank victums like myself they should be held accountable for all the fees that people are incurring with their silence. They are just allowing this scam to continue and thousands of dollars are being lost from this.
I have been fighting since 01/20/2017 and have lost 4 paychecksfrom my two jobs and the 458$ that was orginally in my account when this started to the negative balance it created. I have not been able to pay any bills because of this, or get food or gas for my car that I will be losing too since all my paychecks went into the account at the same time and I lost them.
I am still working with wells fargo to try and get this fixed to get my money back but as of 02/09/2017 It has not been settled.
The credit union knew the hardships they are causeing people and they still are not doing anything about it.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Robert
Irvine,California,
USA
Not Realistic
#2Consumer Comment
Thu, February 09, 2017
You are not being realistic.
What you are basically saying is that every time a bank is "aware" that there is a fraudulent check that they alert EVERY branch at bank/credit union/check cashing place in the US. You then expect every bank to verify every check they get against this notification?
Do you realize how many banks there are in the US? Do you realize the extra man power it would take, the delay it would create to go through the 10's of thousands of checks that are processed daily for the very small percentage of checks that may be bad? It would be like me telling you to make your rent/mortgage payment in pennies, but you have to go through each one to make sure that you don't give them any pennies from the year 1975.
The fact that you said the WF Manager expected them to send out a fraud alert, tells me that the Manager probably isn't exactly the swiftest person either, or perhaps he is just saying that to appease you. After all if he really felt like the other bank did something wrong he would have Wells Fargo credit you back the money and then go after them. I can just about guarantee you that if the check was written on a WF account, they would not be sending out this notification he wanted them to send.
You said it yourself. This is a VERY common scam and actually variations of these "cashier check" scams have been going around for a few decades. So let me guess...you got this check and were told to cash it, purchases something and then send back a good portion of those funds via Western Union.(or some other method). They probably even told you to wait until the check "clears" to reassure you and try to convince you it wasn't a scam. I would even bet that if you did send this by Western Union or MoneyGram that when you filled out the form if you read it they even had text on their form about this type of "check scam".
The fact is that they are still able to seceded because people loose all common sense, and quite frankly "assume" things that aren't true. For example the check wasn't "cleared" they made the funds available to you per Regulation CC or the Federal Expedited Funds Availability Act that gives specific times a bank must make a check available. Scammers know this and rely on this. They also know that this requires the funds to be made available before it would come back as bad.
Now, when you presented the check to Wells Fargo you became responsible for the check. They are NOT responsible for determining it is a fraud or not, it is "assumed" that when you present a check to the bank you are representing it is a valid check. After all if you thought it was fraudulent, you would be in even more serious trouble for knowingly presenting a bad check..right?
So this means that if it comes back as bad you need to pay the funds back. Now if this was a "legitimate" company you would go down the line and then hold the person/company who sent you the check responsible. But in this case they are scammers who are not even in the US. So you are at the "end of the line" and the one who is stuck holding the bag.
I really hate writing this and am sorry to tell you this. But if you haven't figure it out yet, the chance of you getting ANY of your money back is just about zero. Where the best way now to get through this is to see if Wells Fargo will allow you to come up with some sort of longer term arrangement to pay back these funds. Where they don't take everything until it is paid but perhaps only a small portion each deposit.
Perhaps you need to change banks and have your funds deposited into the new bank, and then try to work out something with WF. But know that if you leave a debt with WF(or any bank), the will turn you over to Collections and a company called ChexSystems. Where once you are there you can't get a real bank account anywhere for several years because you will be legitimately flagged as having a fraudulent account.
In the end anytime anyone you do not personally know send you a check and asks you to send them back even a dime you can be guaranteed it is a scam. It doesn't matter the reason they give or how convincing they sound. It IS a SCAM.
If you ever get calls or e-mails wanting you to pay a bad debt under threat of arrest, or just send them money in an urgent manner. Again if they are asking you to pay it via "Gift Cards" or Western Union/Money Gram it is a SCAM. Again regardless of how convincing they sound.