A Couple of Scam Cases in Wilkes

In a couple of check involved scams, one Wilkes resident became a victim and one Wilkes resident called the Sheriff's Office.  In the first report, a Boomer woman answered an ad in the paper and communicated with someone in another country via email.  The woman was sent a check and instructed to cash the check but send part of the money back.  The woman feared this was a scam, so she notified the Wilkes Sheriff's Office and the newspaper.  She did not cash the check but turned it over to Sheriff's Investigators.  In the second incident, a Wilkes resident stated that they received a call one afternoon in which the caller explained that the Wilkes man had won a lottery prize.  In order to claim the prize, the man was told to send a 10,000 dollar check to an address in Arizona.  The check was sent, received, and cashed before the man realized it was a scam.  According to www.fraud.org, fake check scams are clever ploys designed to steal your money. You can avoid becoming a victim by recognizing how the scam works and understanding your responsibility for the checks that you deposit in your account. If someone you don’t know wants to pay you by check but wants you to wire some of the money back, beware! It’s a scam that could cost you thousands of dollars. There are many variations of the fake check scam. It could start with someone offering to buy something you advertised, pay you to do work at home, give you an “advance” on a sweepstakes you’ve supposedly won, or pay the first installment on the millions that you’ll receive for agreeing to have money in a foreign country transferred to your bank account for safekeeping. Whatever the pitch, the person may sound quite believable.  In either case, if you are sent a check to cash and send back money or if you are asked to sent a check or wire money to receive a prize....DO NOT SENT MONEY.  It's a scam.