Have you been scammed?

Question

I recently received a check in the mail for a partial amount of money that I supposedly won from a drawing. They wanted me to deposit that check and send them a personal check for a smaller amount to cover "fees and taxes". I knew this was fake. I called the better business association, a scam hotline and I called the businesses they were trying to impersonate. I even talked to the people that were trying to scam me. They were the ones giving me directions on what to do when I received the check. I kept asking questions to see what the man would do...he got very frustrated, he cursed at me and then hung up in my face. When I tried calling him back,,his whole telephone system was turned off. Has anyone been scammed like this recently or ever?

Answer 1

It's called 'advance fee fraud" and it's been in existence since even before the internet. there is an FBI website to report such scams, you might want to submit your information to them as they collect the evidence for prosecutions.

http://www.ic3.gov/
The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).

IC3's mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 gives the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and international level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crime

The "Cyber-Investigations" page at the FBI has resources to research and inform yourself about various new and not-so-new internet scams. The page is http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/cyberhome.htm

Answer 2

I have received an e-mail from a scam operator before, but I have never been scammed. There are only about half a dozen scams out there. All the variations work nearly the same way. 'If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is." I know its overused, but it is all you really need to avoid scams.