My wife received an offical looking letter from G.E. Group notifying her of a $450,000 winning contest entry (a contest that she didn't remember entering). There was an enclosed check for $4500. Upon calling the contact person on the notifying letter, she was advised to deposit the check into her account and call the contest number after three days. After the call, a tax agent would come to her house and accept her personal check for $2980 to pay the non-resident government service tax, which would release the balance of the $450,000.
My wife called the bank on which the check was drawn and was told the check was no good and that this was a scam. The notification letter is very business-like and the check is a real check, just with no funds behind it. The trick is that their check will take much longer than the described 2 or 3 days to clear, and by the time it really clears, our money and the agent would have been long gone and the bank would need their $4500 repaid.
My wife called the contact person to tell her that we weren't fooled. The person got irate and said that the bank had made a big mistake and to keep my wife from losing the $450K, she would send us a certified check or money order from Westen Union for the $4500. Yeah, we'll be expecting that any day now!
0 comments