I received a check in the mail today from a person named Frank Boyd from Ontario, Canada drawn on Hartford Federal Credit Union in Connetitcutt (which is a legitimate bank) for $2250.00. The letter stated that I had won $45, 000.00 in some contest and to call their number immediately or I was going to lose the money. In good faith, they said, they were sending this check. I also, as with the previous person reporting them, was instructed not to tell my bank or anyone else about it.
Obviously this is not only mail fraud, but totally illegal according to US laws.
If anyone else gets this type of thing, please report it to 1) the US Postmaster 2) the IRS 3) local authorities 4) Hartford Federal Credit Union or other institution 4) your state's Consumer Affairs Bureau and lastely, any consumer advacates you can think of such as canada-complaints.com.
If we all don't take action against these people, they will continue to defraud other unsuspecting people who know no different. I have seen these in action before.. when you call they try to convince you that they only want you to use your bank acccount for their money transactions and for that you will receive extra money. What happens then is that they send a check to using your bank information you give them (routing and account numbers), which is a bit over what they say is theirs. Then they withdraw their portion. This is called money laundering! Plus, they now have your banking information and can use your account for other purposes.
We tried to trick one such group and opened an account, let Bank of America know about it all. When they deposited the money, we traced where it came from. Then the bank reported that institution, but it turned out that it went through many banks before going all the way back to the first one which we never found. Needless to say, they withdrew their money that night after finding we were tracing them.
Good luck, and please don't think there is ever something for nothing in this world!
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