Flynrider
Phoenix,#2Consumer Comment
Wed, December 01, 2010
"he told me to go ahead and contact the officials because he was going to do nothing to make this right. "
Of course he won't do anything. You don't know who he is and the throwaway cell phone he's been using will stop working in a few days. His intent was to steal your money without leaving a trail. If you sent the money via Moneygram or Western Union, then he has accomplished his goal and no longer has to pretend to be legit.
"I called the bank with the account number and they told me the account number was a real one and the funds were in there to cover this check."
As you now know, it doesn't matter if the account is real if the check is phony.
This scam takes advantage of bank regulations that require your bank to make deposits available before the check physically clears at its originating bank (which can take a week to 10 days). Most people think that once a bank credits the money to their account, that a check has cleared. Sadly, that is not the case.
Basically, a regulation that was meant to protect consumers from unreasonable bank delays has been turned around and used to scam people. As a rule, you should treat all paper checks from unknown sources with great skepticism, as well as notifications that you've won large sums of money. Real life doesn't work that way. In the astronomically unlikely event that you should win a large amount of money, you will not be required to pay anyone to receive it.