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David
N. Kirkman
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North Carolina Division of Aging and Adult Services |
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Counterfeit Check/Sweepstakes Scammers Foiled in Kinston
Bank Officers with The Little Bank in Kinston successfully interrupted a counterfeit check/Sweepstakes scam this morning just as an older customer was preparing to wire money out of the country to the scammers. Only a few minutes before, the bank officers saw a counterfeit check alert posted on a special database for bank industry security personnel and law enforcement officials by Task Force member Cathaleen Skinner of the Consumer Protection Division. The Little Bank customer presented the counterfeit check in question, thinking it was real and believing, also, that she was supposed to use it to pay certain taxes and expenses so that she might receive a sweepstakes prize of several hundred thousand dollars. The alert helped bank officers convince the customer that the sweepstakes and the check were fraudulent. The counterfeit check received by this Kinston consumer has been mailed to consumers throughout North Carolina during the last two weeks. The checks are employed in an assortment of international sweepstakes frauds and Nigerian 419 money transfer scams. The checks are mailed to older consumers along with a letter advising them that they have won a foreign sweepstakes or lottery prize ranging anywhere from $250,000 to $850,000. Victims are instructed to deposit the counterfeit check, then wire all the funds to Canada to cover “taxes” on the prize. The counterfeit checks mentioned in this morning’s alert to the banks purport to be drawn on Citibank Delaware, with the account holder identified as Citigroup. A copy of one of the counterfeit Citibank checks should be attached. It must be noted that the fraud artists in question are producing and mailing counterfeit checks that bear the names, logos and routing numbers of a large assortment of banking institutions and corporate account holders, both large and small. A recently issued FBI warning to bank customers concerning this and similar cross-border scams can be found on the Internet at http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraud_alert.pdf. Checks received from strangers in any of the ten transactions described in the FBI warning should be treated with great suspicion.
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