25 Jun Security is about more than those who protect you.
Eagle Protective Group provides an array of services for companies and individuals who need security guards to protect their property or VIP executive protection to perform at events in front of emotionally charged fans.
However, we’re not just about protecting your personal well being or company in a physical sense, we want to empower you to protect yourself in other areas in life.
If you knew how many people were out there, eager to scam you through the simplest means, through email for instance, you would have to pick your jaw off the floor.
Over the next few weeks we’ll offer ways you as a business owner can protect yourself virtually, because at EPG security guard services in Dallas, we’re on your side in more ways than one.
Today we’re going to discuss wire fraud aka the old check bounce scam.
This scam appears in many forms, but one thing is consistent, someone will owe you money for some arrangement and attempt to pay you more than you asked for and in return, ask you to forward that payment on to another person.
How does wire or check fraud work?
Let’s say Bob needs to sell his older copy machines so he can buy new ones later. Bob posts an ad for his Xerox machine on a popular classified ads website known for reaching large audiences (craigslist.org for example).
1. Bob responds to an ad for someone wanting to purchase his Xerox machine, it’s a great price and the buyer seems like the real deal. They ask for important information to put Bob at ease: Serial numbers, a machine history, everything a buyer would want to make a confident purchase.
2. Bob emails the buyer and the response is courteous, compliant and nothing in the conversation sticks out as unusual.
3. As the purchase conversation continues over the next couple of days, the buyer tells Bob that he has a co-worker or partner that is in the area and he needs to send his partner some petty cash to cover some sort of legitimate expense for that location, possibly for shipping this Xerox machine to another location that is not local.
4. Bob has created a relationship with this buyer through email and he feels like that’s not a big deal, petty cash is often used for business trips in his own line of work so how could it hurt?
5. Bob accepts a check that is hundreds or thousands of dollars over what he was asking for because the buyer allows him to keep a portion of the overage as a thank you, as long as he wires or sends another type of payment to the buyer’s partner.
6. Bob deposits the check, and being smart, he waits for the check to “clear” before handing over his Xerox machine.
7. The check clears and Bob sends the overage to the buyer’s “partner”. Well, here is where it all falls apart. The buyer can place enough money in an account to make it seem funded and the check “clears” the initial first checks and balances a bank makes when a money transfer is initiated. But really, it can take over a week to officially clear a payment once and for all, and the bank will see that the buyer’s account is empty and “bounce” the check.
8. Bob has not only lost his Xerox machine to a fraudulent buyer, he has also possibly implicated himself with his bank as a fraudulent business that cashes bad checks. They may think he’s in on it. The money is gone and he has to pay fees on top of the mess that’s been created. If he’s lucky, the bank won’t call the police and file a report against him.
So. What do you do when someone asks to pay you more than what you asked for something your business is selling in exchange for a little extra “on top” for doing this favor? Nothing. You move on to the next customer and remember cash is king and for safety, conduct sales in public places or in front of secure locations (police departments, security organizations, etc)
We hope this has been a helpful article to protect yourself in a busy fast paced world eager to scam you and your business. EPG is more than a security guard company in Dallas, we want to help protect the whole package. Call us if you have any questions on how Eagle Protective Group can serve your business with security event services or security guard patroles.
Eagle Protective Group offers services in Dallas, Mesquite and New York City, New York.
For more information on how check scams work, please visit:
http://www.fraud.org/scams/general-fraud/fake-check-scams
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0159-fake-checks
https://www.craigslist.org/about/scams