WILTON – Picture this: A missionary contacts you, asking you for help with his work in Africa. Because of the corrupt government in the country where he works, most of his budget is being siphoned away from his mission.
You agree to cash a check he sends you and send the amount back to him in American dollars. He offers to let you keep $100 or so as payment. After sending him his money, you spend the next few days buoyant and happy.
Then you get a call from the bank letting you know you owe it $3,900. The check you cashed was a fraud, and you are going to have to pay the price.
If you think this sounds too bad to be true, think again. A similar scenario played out in Wilton this past week. Police Chief Wayne Gallant said Wednesday that Nigerian Internet scams are getting more common in Maine as more people get comfortable using the Internet.
The Wilton case was reported a few days ago by a local woman. She thought “this was helping for some sort of missionary work,” Gallant said.
And while she thought she’d be getting paid a little for her efforts, she actually was conned out of $3,900, he added.
Rumford police Lt. George Cayer said he’s seen three such cases since January. “There’s one on my desk now. It’s a counterfeit Western Union money order. It’s out of control.”
Perhaps more common now than the Nigerian schemes, which garnered national attention last year, are phony lotto-winnings scams, Cayer says. Con artists send unsuspecting people “a winning check that they need to cash, and then send a certain amount” back – ostensibly to pay taxes and shipping charges – in order to receive the jackpot.
“It’s such a large problem, and it’s so widespread,” Cayer said.
He investigated one from Nigeria. Somehow the con artist “received the victim’s mailing address and account info, and they got a MasterCard in this victim’s name.” The man began receiving boxes full of merchandise – boots, stereo systems, and cell phones – that he forwarded on to Nigeria. He contacted police when he received his first bill for the merchandise. “We told him to put a stop on all UPS packages – they were filling up our evidence room,” Cayer said.
But not much could be done to find the perpetrator. “It’s my understanding that the government of Nigeria refuses to do (anything) to these people that are doing this,” Cayer said.
Rather than relying on law enforcement to get your money back once it’s been stolen, Gallant says, it would be wiser to not get caught in a scam in the first place.
And if you have come to trust the person who asks you to cash the check? Don’t do it, Gallant says. Deposit it in your account first, and wait for the bank to validate it. Once you know it’s for real, you can send them the money
“The basic thing we try to tell people is: if it sounds too good to be true, don’t buy into it.”
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