Monday, January 3, 2011

The Sophistication of Scams


I just got done reading the article Scams achieve a new level of sophistication which does a good job at pointing out that anyone can become the victim of a scam.  Here are my two cents that I added as a comment to the article . . .

These scams have been evolving for years now, and the WORST part about any of the counterfeit cashier's check scams is the fact that when someone wants to find out if the check is legitimate and they take it to the bank for them to look at . . . because of course the average person would assume the bank can spot a counterfeit check . . . the banking customer is told that it is "good", "clear", "verified" and that "funds are available".  Look up good, clear and verified in the dictionary and by definition the average person would then assume that there is no problem in cashing and using the money from a check that is "good", "clear" and "verified".  But this is where we as banking customers make a mistake . . . we trust our banks are giving us accurate information.

These checks can come back weeks and even months later as counterfeit, and the bank CUSTOMER is held liable for the entire amount, the the bank, who verbally told us it was "good", "clear" and "verified".

How about the banks start telling people the truth?  That it could take 10 business days or more for the check to be "good", "clear" and "verified".  Is that too much to ask?

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