I got a check yesterday for almost $2,500. I'm usually not susceptible to such foolishness but I looked up Bestmark and saw that it was legit; examined the check like an IRS agent and STILL thought it was legit. I hope it not too late for me. I cashed the check and bought the gift cards. My bank cashed the check with no problem so I assumed it was fine. As I was sitting here typing up my "report on the shop", my brain finally kicked in. After finding this forum, I realize what an idiot I really am! Thankfully, I realized this before I sent the cards or gave him the pin numbers. So I guess the check will come back and I'll be responsible, right?

You definitely got scammed! Yes, the check will bounce and you'll be responsible to pay the money back to the bank. Tough lesson to learn early on - you have my sympathy!

Correct. Plus, you can't return the gift cards. Hopefully they are for somewhere that you can use later?

Yikes, were they eBay gift cards? These scammers like iTunes and eBay gift cards the most for some reason. I hope you can afford to be out the money for awhile since that fake check is going to bounce. But you need to contact your bank first thing Monday morning and let them know what happened, since even though you didn't know better, passing a fake check can really screw up your banking status. You had the money in your account to cover it I hope?

I can transfer the money from my savings, which I've been living on since I lost my job in October! The gift cards are called Reloadit. I think they're like visa gift cards, so I guess I'll be paying my bill and buying groceries with them for a while!

Oh good, that's good to hear that you have savings. Just make sure that there aren't any fees associated with each of the transactions. I don't know anything about Reloadit.

And look, there are some reputable MSCs out there. There is a list at the bottom of the page of reputable companies you can sign up with and start doing shops. You won't get paid in advance, of course, and shop fees are usually $10-$20 per shop, but if you are looking for ways to make money until you get another job, it's a valid gig. I have been MSing for nearly two decades in addition to doing demos and retail merchandising.

How can a bank not recognize a fake check?

The scammers are really, really good I guess. You'd hope that the banks would have more sophisticated technology for things like that, but apparently not. It's been going on for at least a decade and people are still getting scammed. At least you figured it out before you sent them the codes.

Remember too that the reputable MSC’s listed below can be misrepresented just like your experience with Bestmark. You have to be sure it’s really their website and the email is coming from them, not an imposter. They often use a very similar looking email address to fool the target.

@Cbroyles wrote:

How can a bank not recognize a fake check?

Many bank tellers make minimum wage. Some of the ones I have seen at B of A are not the brightest. I think that they get their news from Instagram.

I got a counterfeit in the mail, too. But I KNEW it was a scam, and turned it in to the postal inspectors.

Hope you end up not being out anything. Good thing you caught it before you sent the numbers in!

They do, after they verify the check.

The checks look legitimate. Recent (in the past few years) regulations favored bank customers by allowing the checks to float. The checks are cashed into the customers' with the customers' funds as collateral.

When the verification shows that the check is bad, the collateral is used to replace the stolen funds. Because the customer used the bad funds to purchase the gift cards, they are on the hook. You know the rest.

@Cbroyles wrote:

How can a bank not recognize a fake check?

The tellers' job is to deposit the check. The back office verifies the check by calling the issuing bank and this can take a few days.

This is why remote deposit works. It gets the check into the bank account.

@SoCalMama wrote:

@Cbroyles wrote:

How can a bank not recognize a fake check?

Many bank tellers make minimum wage. Some of the ones I have seen at B of A are not the brightest. I think that they get their news from Instagram.

I got one as well. It looked real! I called the issuing bank and gave them the numbers on the bottom. They confirmed the check was a fake.

I also gave the check and packaging to the postal IG.

@ceasesmith wrote:

I got a counterfeit in the mail, too. But I KNEW it was a scam, and turned it in to the postal inspectors.

Hope you end up not being out anything. Good thing you caught it before you sent the numbers in!

They do, but not instantly. My employers cheques used to bounce sometimes. It would take a couple of weeks before the cheque was verified as cleared or not cleared. Different than a fraudulent cheque, they just weren't good at keeping funds in their account!

@Cbroyles wrote:

How can a bank not recognize a fake check?

If you get a check like that always check with the website through a valid link like at the bottom of the pages here. Most will tell you that they do not send out checks like that because of the scams like this.

I have gotten emails about Paypal giving me a gift card. I have not seen the Nairobi prince scam in a while now.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2020 07:44PM by 2stepps.

Even the $100 bill counterfeiters have gotten so good that the "magic pens" -- the ones cashiers swipe over a bill to see if it's fake -- no longer work.

Treasury has advised people to stop using the pens, as they no longer reliably tell you if a bill is fake.

The bank should only clear a check after it has been deposited into the account it was written from. I don't understand why the bank states the check is good when it is not. Tellers have no way of knowing a good check from a bad check.

A company asked me did I want to wrap my car. I said yea. But they wanted to send me a check for over 2 grand and wanted me to pay the wrap guy. Then they sent me pressuring texts I thought a reputable company would pay the wrap guy themselves. So I never even opened the envelope. I tried to give it to the police but the detective never bothered to call me back. The envelope is around here somewhere in paperwork, don't know where offhand.

@F and L TeleComm wrote:

A company asked me did I want to wrap my car. I said yea. But they wanted to send me a check for over 2 grand and wanted me to pay the wrap guy. Then they sent me pressuring texts I thought a reputable company would pay the wrap guy themselves. So I never even opened the envelope. I tried to give it to the police but the detective never bothered to call me back. The envelope is around here somewhere in paperwork, don't know where offhand.

Yes, that’s a known scam scenario.

[www.consumer.ftc.gov]

@Cbroyles wrote:

How can a bank not recognize a fake check?

Mostly because there's no one way for checks to be made. Very technically you could manually type out a check on a typewriter with the right info and give it to someone to cash and a bank can accept it as long as all the information is accurate.

There's tons of various places that design and make checks so the only way to know if it's real is to check with the issuing bank by going there and verifying it or depositing it into your bank and going that route. However, it is free to go to the issuing bank to check. Your bank will charge you if it bounces

If you read the deposit agreement you signed, you will see that the bank agrees to give you access to the funds days in advance of the check actually being processed and "cleared" through the ACH (automated clearing house). If you are youth challenged like I am, you can remember the days when paper checks actually traveled through the Federal Reserve system back to the issuing bank. If the check was no good, then the check reversed course and arrived back at your bank 7 to 10 business days later. Since that was possible, Banks did not clear checks for days to weeks. The length of time depended upon how far away the issuing bank was. As technology improved, banks and regulators responded by only sending images through the ACH and by providing access to funds (generally) the next business day. If you want to be cautious, you can impose your own hold period and never use funds until 7 to 10 days after you deposit the check or the bank shows an ACH deposit. The very large multinational company that I worked for in Delaware used an obscure bank in Wyoming for payroll accounts until near the end of the 1980s. They knew that the check would not clear for 5 (?) business days and they earned money on the float until then.

Your bank does not actually say that the check you deposit is good on the next business day, they merely give you early access to the funds. If you don't believe me, either read the fine print in the deposit agreement or ask the next time you do a CSR shop at a bank. Just be careful to use the right terminology.

@shopper8 wrote:

The bank should only clear a check after it has been deposited into the account it was written from. I don't understand why the bank states the check is good when it is not. Tellers have no way of knowing a good check from a bad check.

myst4au, very good explanation!!!!!