A very convincing scam.

Unless a piece of mail has a name/address that I recognize on it, I generally don't open it at all as a rule. If I think it might have sensitive information on it, I shred it. So no, I don't think I would have been fooled into that. I've heard of people who have been scammed by things like that, though... wiring money to find that they suddenly had no money at all. It's a scary thought. I'm glad you sent it to the postmaster to help clear things up; good for you!

Beware of those scams. Never deposit a check without making sure that it is from a legitimate source. Fraudulent checks would clear before anyone finds out that there are no funds to back them up. You will end up paying for the bounced check and may even get reported for depositing one. The banks do not have the capability of finding out beforehand which is sad. The burden, of course, falls on the consumer.

Wow~ I hadn't heard of that scam yet. Thanks for the warning! Yes, they are getting really clever with how they present their scams to look like they're legit. I also have done mystery shopping for reputable places, so I'm probably on the list too. I check out each and every place I do stuff for, just to make sure they're on the up and up. There are so many doing this kind of thing, they no sooner catch one and there's a new bunch every day. I haven't been fooled yet, but close to it a couple of times. The ones I find I turn in too. Thanks again for the warning!

Sweets, Do you remember me telling on here that my son recieved a certified check for a car he was selling. He was to cash it and pay a person that would come to get the car...I called the bank it was drawn on and they said it was a scam! With seling on ebay I only accept paypal payments! xoxoxoxoxoxox

Wow! That's crazy! Sometimes I get things like that in the mail. Checks for large amount of money, and my uncle said if you deposit the check, they mess with your bank account and things like that. Its kind of scary because I really thought I got a huge check for sometime, and it was fake! You have to be really careful with things like that!

I am very leary of anything like that....very so I don't think I would have given it a second look if the name or address was off.....I would have sent it directly back to the post office....or remailed it myself. There are alot of scams out there...I wish they would spend their time doing something good with their brains instead of thinking up ways to bilk people!

It probably would have pal at first , but like you I would have been very skeptical and checked it out , I would have been so disappointed too :( xx

I don't trust those types of mail. They get tossed in the trash with a good laugh. There are a lot of people who would fall prey to scams such as this. I hope that the Postal Service gets to the bottom of this one before too many get nabbed.

That is very spooky! And I'm happy you didn't fall for it. You did the right thing by reporting the check to the Postmaster. It's a federal crime for people to send you such things. I'm happy that things worked out for you before you got scammed. A friend of mine was scammed for $10,000. Her husband opened an email from overseas followed the directions and then used her bank account to launder money. He thought the check was legitimate. He used her bank to cash a check from someone they didn't know. And, it was a fake, so she ended up owing $10,000 plus bounced check fees and her credit was ruined. Scams do happen to even the most savvy people! The banks should be much more careful and not rely on naive consumers to do their jobs for them. Laws don't help protect consumers from being scammed. They only prosecute the people that get caught scamming. Government needs to work harder to educate consumers and banks. More safeguards need to be in place that keep checks like that from ever clearing the bank in the first place!

I would have been leery of it because thats a lot of money for them to trust people not to just take and run...plus the errors would have caught my eye and I probably would have ended up shoving it to the side and not actually doing anything with it. Its good other people check things cause I tend to just set it aside and say i dont believe thats real.

good day...I never fell to any scam yet and I want to keep it that way. It's a good thing that members here (mylot) shares their experiences regarding this matter. These scams are becoming elaborate and perfectly planned to con unexpecting victims. It's sure a big help getting tips from members here.

Glad you didn't fall for it. Last year we got a check that said we had won an out of country lottery in the amount of 2700.00. The problem was it was a computerized real check on a bank in my state. I knew it was a scam, but wanted to be sure. We took it into the bank and they were surprised it was on a real check with routing numbers and everything. They called that bank and learned that the person who owned that account had been ripped off somehow and the checks were being forged in their name. Thankfully we hadn't tried to deposit it.

Wow Gerty, good catch. I don't know. I probably would have been suspicious because of the size of the check. I don't know if I would have thought as fast as you did. Your definitely did the right thing. I hope they catch them! Good work! There are way too many scammers out there. It makes me very afraid to try any of the online jobs and I really need to find one.

A good buddy of mine is a mystery shopper (Does both phone calls and in-store shopping). With some of the stuff he has told me I am pretty sure you have to be registered as a mystery shopper with a certain company (This may only apply to certain areas) so it would be highly unlikely for someone who is not affiliated with a mystery shopper company to receive mail like that Also just using my friend as an example, I have never heard of them using that much money for a mystery shopper evaulation. He told me the in store shopping is usually small ammounts and he gets paid no more than 10-20 bucks on each in store evaluation. The more expensive evaluations are usually not more than 80 dollars (Sometimes theme park related). Then again I'm going completely off my friend's job as a mystery shopper so it sounds pretty deceiving with what they are doing despite the little that I know.

yep I am very leery of all that stuff, too many people are losing their money that way, and canadian banks are not even cashing foreign checks anymore because of all the scams out there. It is getting hard just to cash checks from people you know.

it just amazes me. how many ways they have found out to scam! what people can do for money.. it is very sad also. they are making you work and then dump you like this.

I'd be suspicious if I received a cheque for an amount of money that large without having earned it straight away, I have no money for them to steal anyway but it's amazing the lengths people will go to rob you. I'm glad you spotted it and reported them anyway and didn't get caught out.

Wow! That is a pretty good scam! I am glad that you noticed all of those errors. I would always think getting a check that large there would be some catch involved. That is just crazy! I am glad that you didn't get hooked into this!

i got 5 like that in one month. i just threw them away. it didn't make any since i mean why would they send me a $5,000 check only to tell me to send some back to them. i mean why didn't they just keep the part that they wanted me to send back. i haven't recieved any more since. my local news station did a report on them earlier so i kind of knew what to look out for. all of that money will make you want to follow through but after you think about how much it could cost you in the end then you realize that it is totally not worth it. good discussion by the way.

I have become very wary of the scams that are running on the internet nowadays,the surveys seem to be just a ploy to sell you something,and the sites that offer you work at home all ask you to pay some money up front,there is no way of getting rich quick on the internet,it is better to stay safe thatn to be sorry,im so sorry that this happened to you.