SOOO confused .. please read

glenihan

Registered User
alright my roommate and i are incredibly confused

we check the mail today and there's an envelope addressed to him with no return address .. it has his name properly spelled and was handwritten

the envelope had a sticker that said "air mail par avion royal mail" and a foreign stamp (i've learned that royal mail is the UK's mail service)

here's the kicker inside was a cashier's check made out to my roommate for .. get this .. $8700.42 and NOTHING else

my roommate has no idea who the remitter is .. never heard of the guy before .. it was drawn from sterling bank in houston texas (we live in nyc).. even weirder since it seems to have been sent from the UK

what the hell is going on and any ideas on what he should do?
 
well i'm not worried about it being illegal .. its a cashier's check which means the moeny is set aside and by endorsing it he would only be acknowleding that he is the name on the check and he wants the money and he'll have the bank manager photocopy both sides of the check before its endorsed and then sign it as a witness

we are still confused as **** though
 
This might be a scam of some sort. Would it be a crime to cash this cashier's check if it were forged?
 
Careful with that **** Glen - a couple months ago I had my truck for sale on an internet classifieds site. I was contacted by a guy who claimed to want to buy my vehicle. Long story short - I figured it was a scam after a few email interactions but I kept things going (just wanted to see how far it would go I guess maybe I was bored)

The guy ended up sending me a money order, in an envelope exactly as you described. The scam went like this: The seller wanted to send me a check for a few thousand over the price of the car. I was to Western Union him remainder of the money after keeping what was owed me for the car. Thing is, about 2 weeks after I cashed the check, I would have learned that it was counterfeit, and the bank would have demanded their money back. And, because of a loophole in US policy, I would have been legally liable to give them their money back!!

So, if I had gone through with the whole process, I would have been stuck with my truck, and out $2000.

Anyway, your roommate recieving the check without anyone contacting him first seems really odd. Perhaps it was sent in error, or after you cash it a guy in another country will contact you and claim the check was sent by accident and could you please Western Union him the money.

The way you described the envelope sounds exactl like the one I got, from the UK too. Perhaps its a derivative of this scam or something similar.

Crazy ****! Read more about it here:

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This '419 scam' is so huge that there are even people who make a sport out of 'baiting' the scammers just **** with them:
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You can try and cash the check, but dont spend a dime of the money for at least 30 days, as you might end up owing it to the bank.

BV
 
This might be a scam of some sort. Would it be a crime to cash this cashier's check if it were forged?
Click to expand...

Its not a crime - but if its a counterfeit check you'll owe the bank the money they gave you. Its a wacky law and unscrupulous assholes from overseas have been taking advantage of it for a long time.

BV
 
Hey BVrunga,
I had that same **** happen to me. Some asshole from Hawaii said he had sent me the check but accidently overpayed me by 3000 dollars. I to figured it was a scam seeing how he could barely speak a lick of english, and I couldn't understand whtat the hell he was trying to write in the emails. THe bastard even called me up and asked when I was going to send him his 3000 dollars. So beware when selling vehicles through the internet
 
mildain said:
Hey BVrunga,
I had that same **** happen to me. Some asshole from Hawaii said he had sent me the check but accidently overpayed me by 3000 dollars. I to figured it was a scam seeing how he could barely speak a lick of english, and I couldn't understand whtat the hell he was trying to write in the emails. THe bastard even called me up and asked when I was going to send him his 3000 dollars. So beware when selling vehicles through the internet
Click to expand...

Yeah...That's a popular scam. It takes a while for cashiers's checks to clear. So you cash it thinking you it's all set and then some guy wants a portion of it back...you send it and afterwards your bank tells you the check is no good and you're out that $.
 
Hey BVrunga,
I had that same **** happen to me. Some asshole from Hawaii said he had sent me the check but accidently overpayed me by 3000 dollars. I to figured it was a scam seeing how he could barely speak a lick of english, and I couldn't understand whtat the hell he was trying to write in the emails. THe bastard even called me up and asked when I was going to send him his 3000 dollars. So beware when selling vehicles through the internet
Click to expand...

Yeah, there are a lot of assholes out there. I got as much info as I could out of the guy, then fowarded all his emails to the FBI:)

Surprisingly, 20minutes after I sent the email, a detective from the FBI called my house! It was kinda cool to see a government agency respond so quickly - basically just warned me about the scam and whatnot.

BV
 
BV,
That's almost exactly what I read on one of those Snopes.com type of sites.
Except that I remember the check (or whatever) coming from a legit business with a legit account # for that business.

Folks getting arrested for basically cashing a check to them.
 
If it's legit you are good to go...
cashier's checks are guaranteed by the issuing institution....to even cancel one includes filling out a declaration of loss affidavit...

soo, if you really want to cash it...go ahead...but DO NOT spend the money for at least a month...just in case...

but maybe it's a mistake and you could really really be screwing somebody out of their money...
 
FENRIR said:
If it's legit you are good to go...
cashier's checks are guaranteed by the issuing institution....to even cancel one includes filling out a declaration of loss affidavit...

soo, if you really want to cash it...go ahead...but DO NOT spend the money for at least a month...just in case...

but maybe it's a mistake and you could really really be screwing somebody out of their money...
Click to expand...
Good advice...cash it and sit on the money while you find out the who, what, when, where, and why's of it all.

I'd be calling the bank every week to see if the check was legit, lol.

Hey glen, tell him he can buy us all a round of cycles :D hehe
 
I wonder if you cashed it, put it in an account, and let it build intrest for a month or however long you wanted to. Then if it was fake, you'd have to send the money back, but have the intrest off of it...wonder if they would let you keep the interest...something is better than nothing.
 
Issued in Texas and sent from the UK? My money is on FAKE! If it sounds too good to be true,...

My only exception to this would be (if you believe in this stuff) if it was a God thing. Known people who felt they should give an offering, usually a sacrificial one (financially speaking) then recieve a check they were not expecting for the same amount or even 10X more.
 
Had a friend who had a similar scam run..sold a mountian bike to some guy in Italy and the Italian wanted to pay him extra..bla bla bla, scam.

Why a check out of the blue for no reason?? Not a clue but I'd have it checked out by the bank in cooperation with the Feds. I would not be surprised if you get a call from the sender detailing some specific instructions.

Or your friend could just be insanely lucky..but I doubt it.
 
its from Sterling Bank in texas

we are thinking about just framing the check and never cashing it .. its definitely some type of scam
 
damn it we had such great plans for that 8700.. so much for our monkey butler :(

i'm still confused as **** as to how they got roommates name and address .. my bet is he signed up for something online
 
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