Chesterton Tribune

 

 

CPD: Web job posting leads to phony check scam costing woman $3,500

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The second Chesterton resident in less than a week has been defrauded of thousands of dollars in a phony check scam, Chesterton Police said.

According to police, on Feb. 13 the resident reported that, in response to a job posting on indeed.com, she accepted an offer from one “Rhoda Wilder”--purportedly an employee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Albuquerque, N.M.--to take receipt of her belongings in advance of Wilder’s move to Chesterton and to clean her new apartment, to take a job at EPA in Chicago.

Bit of a hitch, though: before leaving New Mexico for Indiana, Wilder had to rush to the side of her sick son in New Delhi, India.

For that reason, Wilder sent the resident a cashier’s check for $3,500, with these instructions: the resident should deposit the whole $3,500 in her personal account, then wire $2,860 to New Delhi, so that Wilder would have money on hand when she got there to pay the movers who would be transporting her stuff to Chesterton.

The resident, in fact, did so. (Western Union’s $1,500 transaction limit even forced her to divvy the $2,860 into two installments.)

Wilder subsequently e-mailed the resident, thanking her and saying that “all is well and she can’t wait to get back to the U.S. to her new apartment in Chesterton.”

One day later, the resident’s debit card was declined. On making an inquiry, she discovered that the $3,500 cashier’s check was bogus and that “her account was now in the red.”

In his detailed report on the incident, the investigating officer made note of the following “psychological and emotional factors which came into play in this scam”:

* The scammer “needs help and terrible things will happen to her if the victim does not help.”

* The scammer “has a sick son, sick enough to be in the hospital.”

* The scammer is “helplessly ‘stuck’ overseas, this time in India, and things are spiraling out of control.”

* The scammer “sets up an employer/employee relationship in which the scammer plays the dominant role of employer. As the employee, the victim may feel compelled to ‘go with the program’ even when warning bells start ringing.”

* The rate of pay which the scammer offered--$20 per hour--is “much higher than normal for housekeeping/cleaning for the area.”

* The scammer “sends a cashier’s check, which is more trustworthy than a personal check since the bank secures the money for a cashier’s check.”

Also Victimized

Less than a week later, another Chesterton resident reported losing more than $5,000 in the same sort of phony check scam.

In this case the resident had answered an ad posted on care.com by a woman supposedly moving to the area and offering to pay the resident $500 as a home caregiver.

The resident then received a check for $2,655, which--again--she was instructed to deposit in her personal account, then wire $2,100 to an account at Bank of America to pay for her “employer’s” movers and $500 to a different account in Arizona.

The resident did as she was told, only to discover that she is now out of pocket more than $5,000 in cash and bad-check charges and fees.

Warning Sign

The investigating officer put it this way in his report: you agree to a particular transaction with a stranger and that person sends you a check far in excess of the stipulated sum with instructions for what to do with the balance, it’s a scam, plain and simple.

 

 

 

 

Posted 2/25/2015

 
 

 

 

 

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