My daughter, a first-semester college student in St. Paul, MN, registered with the Sittercity website. She was contacted, interviewed, and 'hired' by a Belgian family working as foreign investors in Malaysia, who were relocating to the US. E-mail and text communications continued for about 2 months, with Fred Tanner eventually requesting that she purchase a Nintendo game for his child, to be brought to their first meeting to facilitate 'bonding'. He explained that his funds were primarily transferred to the US, and that US stores would not accept international credit cards, so his associate in NY would send the funds to her. Perpetrator also sent three photographs of himself and his wife, his wife and daughter, and little 'Ruth' alone; he went to some lengths to establish a level of familiarity.
Address where services would be required was provided. I checked the address, it was on a realtor's website. When I checked two weeks later, it had been removed from website. It is now relisted. I also did ran an Internet search on Fred Tanner - a name frequently associated with St. Paul and Malaysia. This search was inconclusive. Tone of e-mails was respectful, allowed my daughter to choose location of first meeting and to bring someone with her. Meeting date set for 12/10/09. Daughter also purchased a bead kit for 'Ruth', as a gift from herself. Although I monitored the proceedings, I did so with my daughter's safety, not fraud, in mind.
A week prior to winter break, daughter suddenly received two $1,000 money orders in US mail; I instructed her to contact Fred Tanner immediately, to return the money orders, and to purchase the games with her own funds. Fred Tanner replied that the money had been sent in error by his US associate, instead of to his shipper, and asked my daughter to wire the balance of funds to his shipper. I thought this unusual, but determined that the money orders were drawn on Wells Fargo bank, which has a branch near her school. I instructed daughter to take the funds to Wells Fargo for verification. Wells Fargo employee Dewey Khiev told her that she would need to open an account, which she did. She deposited the money orders, and was given $200 in cash by the bank (which I found unusual) and was told to return in two days to confirm that the money orders had cleared, prior to withdrawing the rest of the funds.
She took the $200, added $150 of her own money, and purchased the games. She returned in two days, and was asked to return on the third day, which she did. She withdrew the remaining funds, and attempted to wire as instructed to Alfred Coe in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The nearest Western Union office equipment was down. She e-mailed Fred Tanner, who responded with three other local addresses where she might wire funds. As it was late in the day, during finals week, she was not able to wire the funds until 12/17. On 12/17/09, Wells Fargo mailed a letter to our home in PA, which did not arrive until 12/23/09, informing my daughter that the money orders were either stolen or counterfeit. As a teenager, who is not accustomed to this type of financial instrument, my daughter did not have the experience to spot a potential problem. She waited until the Wells Fargo branch told her that the funds had cleared to attempt to forward funds to the 'shipper'.
We were stunned to learn that Wells Fargo paid funds prior to verifying that the money orders were legitimate; this is one of the reasons I recommended that she take the money orders to the bank of origin - to establish legitimacy. Wells Fargo did include copies of the money orders with their original letter to my daughter - they were drawn on Wells Fargo/Albertsons in Anchorage, Alaska, and signed (illegibly) by a person from (another empty house) in Brooklyn, NY. A friend, who is a banker, looked at the moneygram copies, and immediately stated that any teller should have questioned the moneygrams and alerted a customer that there might be an issue. Our local bank has a written policy, which states that some funds may be held for several weeks, until they have cleared the bank on which they are drawn. I am not a banker, but I would have questioned these moneygrams, had I seen them prior to deposit.
Thus began the nightmare. The perpetrator timed the fraud so the funds were to be transferred immediately prior to my daughter's break, therefore all records were in her college dorm room and unavailable to provide to Wells Fargo. The initial Wells Fargo loss prevention specialist who called gave us the first clue of fraud, and advised my daughter to immediately contact the St. Paul Police Department to obtain a case number, which she did. We are still attempting to work through Wells Fargo channels to obtain a fraud claim number and clear her name. The police officer with whom we spoke was derisive, asserting that the perpetrator is sitting in a hut in Nigeria; the facts which I have established indicate that this is not the case. However, it is fairly clear that no one is interested in investigating this incident, which is obviously what the perpetrator expects.
Western Union has made no response to attempts to determine who received the funds ostensibly wired to Malaysia.
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