FTC: The bottom-line on fake checks scams

If someone you don’t know sends you a check and asks for money back, that’s a scam.

Fake checks drive many types of scams — like those involving phony job and income opportunities, online classified ad sales, and others. In a fake check scam, a person you don’t know asks you to deposit a check – sometimes for several thousand dollars and usually for more than you are owed — and send some of the money back, often by wire transfers or gift cards, to them or another person.  Over the last several years, the number of fake check scams reported to the FTC has steadily increased, and so have the dollars lost. The FTC found that younger people are hit especially hard. In 2019, people in their twenties were more than twice as likely as people 30 and older to report losing money to a fake check scam.  Want to learn more? Visit ftc.gov/fakechecks 

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2020/02/ftc-bottom-line-fake-checks-scams?utm_source=govdelivery