Fraud

Just so you know, I had a large print order from a guy names Alex James. He sent me a large cashier's check and then wanted me to send the rest of the money after I
deducted what I would need to make the prints via western union. At that point alarm bells went off. So I went to the bank and they told me it was a fraud. The check was from Michigan First Credit Union. I felt a little foolish, but I am glad I had the bank check it out. It is sad that people will do anything to screww other people
over. I could say worse, but this is a family site!

Your fraud sensor is working well !

I've heard of this scheme attempted with wedding photographers.
A big cashier's check is sent with overpayment. The photographer sends a refund, and then finds the original check has bounced. I guess most people assume once the bank accepts the "cashier's" check, everything is OK.

Thanks for the heads-up, Dan! And I'm happy to hear that they didn't catch you with this scam!

Be sure to report this. Mail fraud is a Federal offense and if you have any contact info for this guy he can end up doing time.

Guy

Yeah I get these once or twice a year. A friend of mine and a former US Dept of Treasury, Secret Service Agent told me that for a while they were tracking these, but now they have cut back for homeland security issues along with the FBI. Your Local FBI office would like to see the check if you feel like taking it to them but don't expect much in the way of information after that.

Most of these frauds go through the UK, Netherlands and North Africa. I've seen a few from China and other small Asian countries pop up here and there.

When someone asks me to accept a check i first tell them that I accept all Credit Cards US and Internationally, and if the insist I tell them that I will not ship until the check clears. That usually turns them away. I used to have that statement on my site and it helped slow the fishing down. PayPal has been a big help on that too as I can have them do the Check electronically and usually the dead give away is the mismatch on the tracking # and that will halt the check instantly.

Dan, in my opinion, you should definitely see to it that this guy gets caught. If you do decide to see justice served, you might expect to have to do a bit of the work yourself. There is so much fraud going on these days that it really does not concern authorities unless it is large scale. I got ripped off on an iPod sale via a Yahoo auction/ western union payment about 5 years ago (before there was a really high level of fraud via such documents). I alerted the IFCC (internet fraud division of the FBI). A few days later I got a call from a Denver police detective that was assigned to my case. The detective said that he couldn't find any info on the guy and then left for a two week vacation. At that point, I decided to gather evidence myself. To make a long story short, after spending 10 hours on the internet (using public records, US Search, a few phone calls and a number of other sources), I had his public records, family phone #'s, his cell phone #, and consent to use the video tape footage from the western union location where he cashed his check. If it weren't for college exams, I was planning on flying down to Texas to prosecute. I share this story to tell you that I still regret not seeing an end to this instance. This kind of theft is rampant and rarely punished. If we don't do what we can to stop it, who will?

I had one of these from the UK/Sweden a few months ago. I was onto him from the start but played along to make sure. Sure enough I got a cashiers check for way over the purchase amount and he wanted the extra back through Western Union (uhhh, sure thing buddy). My bank quickly confirmed it as a counterfiet. I did report it to the FBI but surely don't expect anything to come of it. I talked to this fellow on the phone, he had a middle eastern accent and was trying to pass his name off as "Jack Edward" from the UK. And the check was from a bank in KENTUCKY???? We got some chuckles out of that one.