I was just scammed out of $2800. Is there any way I can get out of having to pay my bank back?

Question

I received counterfeit postal money orders and cashed them at my bank. 2 weeks later they tell me they are counterfeit and now I am $2800 in the hole. Can I tell them that I wont pay them back?

Answer 1

only if you want to go to jail can you tell them that

Answer 2

This falls back to a very basic principal of the legal system in this country, as well as most others:

Ignorance of the law does not remove your responsibility for breaking it.

You got screwed. No way around that. If you owe your bank money because of that, then you owe them money. No way around that either. Your only real recourse would be to file a charge against whoever committed the crime and then talk to your banks legal department and let them know that you are attempting to recover the money.

More than likely, one of two things will happen:

1) They will basically say "too bad" and you'll just have to deal with it.
2) They will put the account "on hold" until all legal issues are dealt with. This would mean you don't have to come up with the money right now, but it also means that all of your accounts would be locked until the entire situation is dealt with.

For $2800, it might be worth consulting a lawyer if you can find one that won't rape you for just a consultation. If you can get away with dropping a couple hundred dollars for a consultation and help with filing the appropriate legal paperwork, it's worth it.

If not, I would start grovelling to your bank now.

Answer 3

Well, of course, it's a bit late to be telling you that you should have covered your butt by not taking money orders from somebody you didn't really know, and whom you probably can't now locate. I say that because that's what it sounds like. I feel like there should have been some way in which the bank could have authenticated the money orders. But I can't seem to connect the dots. It sounds as if the Bank credited you with that $2800 before the money was actually verified. I sure can't see MY bank doing that.. Banks just don't put money into your account, until they have it themselves in their hot little hands.
You yourself should never have tried to draw on those funds until the money orders were confirmed cleared. I am not speaking as any kind of expert, just someone who has a lot of interraction with my bank. I'm not "beating up on you", just really trying to lay out the situation as I interpret it. Legally I think you are likely to be confronted with the question "Who deserves to lose here? The person who initated the whole thing by , apparantly without due caution, accepted fraudulent promisary notes, or the party who ended up out of pocket by honoring those notes? Actually I just talked to a banker friend of mine and he said without hesitation that you are going to have to eat that 2800 clams. He said that because of the great volume of fraudulent monetary instruments now running around (especially from outside the country) he can't think of a scenario in which somebody could walk into a bank, hand over a document and collect that sum of money, where the person had no account with the bank and was not known to them. Hence, the person would pretty much have to have an account there. If, by the remotest chance, the bank did cash that instrument , it would be against some signed paperwork that would lay out specifically, the obligation of the r ecipient to make good on any failure of collection of those funds.
This kind of thing, of course, we all hate with a purple passion. But the harsh reality is that none of us arrived from the Planet Zorg last month. We are all aware that there are some real scumballs out there who will stop at absolutely nothing to separate you from your money, and the bottom line is......if the original lack of proper caution was yours, the buck stops there.
You might b e able to get some further clarification of your precise position from a lawyer who specialises in this kind of thing. But I'd have to say that unfortuntely, the bank is going to come after you for that amount.

Answer 4

More than likely, you have gotten yourself involved with "The Nigerian" money order scam, or any other of the ones from the UK or even Africa. First, promising you money to cash their money orders in the U.S., (Most generally it is the U.S.) should have started those warning bells ringing right off!! Why would they want you to benefit from them, a perfect stranger? You will have to pay the bank back!! It was YOU that "volanteered" to cash them. It was YOU that the bank gave the money to. Therefore, it is YOU that the bank comes after. Generally, the bank will give you a demand for repayment, and give you a certain time to pay it back. You may even be able to work out a payment arrangement with the bank to pay them back. If you can't abide by this, they will probably press charges against you, in which case, you CAN be arrested. I know a woman that just went through this very same thing, but was lucky enough to get a payment arrangement through the bank to pay them back at $87.00 a month. DON'T GET INVOLVED WITH ANY OF THESE SCAMS that ask you to cash money orders, checks, or depositing money into your account for them. Putting anything into your account, so THEY can deposit money into it, only gives them your account number to CLEAN your account out!! If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is, and you should avoid the situation like the plague!! Bring up GOOGLE, and type in "Nigerian" money order scam. You'll be surprised what comes up, and probably how familiar this situation is with yours. Sorry to hear you got burned.

Answer 5

You owe the bank and will have to pay them one way or another. Talk to them, and they may be able to work out a payment plan, otherwise they will just turn you over to a credit agency. You will need to hire a lawyer to go after whoever gave you the money orders. If this was the Nigerian email scam, contact your state attorney general's office. Your state attorney general may be able to help you or point you in the right direction if it was any other type of fraud as well.

Answer 6

You are responsible for getting the money to the bank. The counterfeiter is responsible for getting the money to you. Be sure to file a police report and, yes, you have to pay the bank.

Answer 7

Why would you cash postal money orders unless you knew who sent them? Your bank is not going to accept this loss, can bank acess any money accounts you have and take the 2800 dollars from them?

Answer 8

Your household insurance might cover it. Otherwise you're stuck. The forging of postal money orders -- often by Nigerian 419 scammers -- is well known: http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/mofeatur.htm

The bank clerk should have noticed.

Answer 9

Who sent you the counterfeit money orders? Don't they owe you the money? If you put fake money into your bank account, then spend it, you still owe the bank real money. the person who gave you the fake money, owes you real money.

Answer 10

Make a police report to support your argument.....and the Bank will investigate the matter

Answer 11

you unfortunately owe the money. However, you should be able to track the money orders. Go to the post office, and they will help you file the paperwork for the mail fraud.