Part time job.. can I keep their money?

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 29 Apr 2012 Posts: 4

Was thinking of taking them up on one of those part time home office job offers. As I understand it they will deposit me some money and I keep my cut then wire transfer the rest to them. But what happens if I keep the money for myself? Will they be able to do anything to me?

Will the police? The money will likely come from overseas right.. so will any law enforcement agency have jurisdiction to prosectute me? And will it be an excuse if I say I geniunely had no idea that I was being scammed? I didn't steal anyone's money technically... all I did was receive money that someone sent to me. I had no idea how it was acquired and was led to believe it was a business transaction as part of my job. It doesn't concern me.

Wannabe Baiter Joined: 05 Dec 2011 Posts: 93

Welcome to 419Eater Smile

They will send you a fake cheque. Don't cash it in unless you want serious trouble with the law

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:58 pm

lostn, please don't try to do this. Firstly, no scammer will ever send you any of his own money. They may send you a fake cheque. If you try to deposit that, you will have some explaining to do to your bank and possibly the police.

Any real money that is passed to you will be from other victims and that will make you part of the scam as you will be knowingly participating in the fraud.

We do not do this here and even discussing this is against the house rules. Stay around and read the stickies to find out what we do to waste scammers' time while keeping them away from real victims

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 1:08 pm

Hi,

... and sometimes the cost of dishonored check (chèque impayé) is for you...

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 29 Apr 2012 Posts: 4

Whoa.. so if you're one of those gullible suckers who falls for these scams, you're not actually a victim but a criminal?

I was under the impression the stolen money would be electronically transferred into your account, but if it's a cheque I'm not so interested anymore. Shame.

Different idea: Can you take the cheque to the police instead, and perhaps give them some clues on who the scammer is and help get them arrested? That would be better than simply wasting their time.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 29 Apr 2012 Posts: 4

BTW, the photos of the scammers holding up signs.. are those signs photoshopped or real? I have difficulty believing someone skilled at conning others would fall for something this obvious (unless they can't read or understand what's written on the signs).

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 1:14 pm

No lostn, that's not what we said at all. But if you knowingly receive money from real victims on behalf of known scammers, whether or not you intend to pass the scammers their cut, does make you a criminal.

Baiting Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 21158

lostn wrote:

Whoa.. so if you're one of those gullible suckers who falls for these scams, you're not actually a victim but a criminal?

If it is accepting bank transfers, then you are technically, both victim and criminal. Your life and freedom are at risk, not the scammer hiding in some far away country. The actual person that sent the money to you will not be happy and you are the name they have.

If it is checks, and you can safely accept delivery with NO REAL LIFE information attached, do not cash them or you are in trouble with your bank and the law.

Taking it to the police will accomplish nothing. Marking it fake and hanging it on the wall is about the best thing to do with these.

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 1:50 pm

@lostn i dont quite think you get what are doing here at the eater. We waste scammers time, and keep them running around doing pointless tasks.

WE DO NOT BECOME A SCAMMER OURSELVES !!!!

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 1:53 pm

lostn wrote:

Whoa.. so if you're one of those gullible suckers who falls for these scams, you're not actually a victim but a criminal?

.

In the eyes on the law yes. Ignorance has never been a defense in the law.
I'm sorry I didn't know drink driving then accidentally killing someone was the same as murder. *jail door slams*
The bank may look leniently on you if they feel you really have been scammed and sent your own money.

Firstly, these people have no other intention but to scam you. They will not risk sending you any 'real' money in case you do what you are suggesting.
The check is fake and will often take weeks or months to bounce. You would have most probably sent the lads share to them, who may be long gone and even suggested you do it again.

Even if you were to help the lad receive and launder real money it is a really stupid thing to do. Lads are criminals, they deal in criminal ways and have criminal contacts worldwide. Trying to rip off criminals is pretty stupid.
So whoever you are, please drop the idea, go back to being a normal law abiding person and earn money the real way. Hard work and effort.
BTW, well done for asking here first and spread the word about scams with your friends and family.
Please forward your e-mail on to
http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/
Who will advise others about these people.

Quote:

BTW, the photos of the scammers holding up signs.. are those signs photoshopped or real? I have difficulty believing someone skilled at conning others would fall for something this obvious (unless they can't read or understand what's written on the signs).

As for the signs, lads photoshop or make real signs. PLease do not underestimate the ignorance of some lads. Quite a few of them are one beer short of a sixpack. I've seen some pretty unbelievable things from lads (scammers) the few years I've been here at eater.
Lads getting tattoos of fake churches, going of safaris (trip to other countries to pick up non-existent money), dressing up as superheros and clowns.
Please sick around and learn more with us. The more the merrier.
The next dodgy job offer you get why don't you try a bait. I'm sure you will get a lot of help from members of this site.
Smile

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 4:39 pm

Don't ever use your personal or work address to receive checks on behalf of scammers. Use the dropbox set up for the purpose, or a nonexistent address.

There was someone in Australia who kept money she was supposed to send to a lad. She got in serious trouble with the police.

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 5:45 pm

wowwow wrote:

PLease do not underestimate the ignorance of some lads. Quite a few of them are one beer short of a sixpack.

Will all due respect, I disagree as to their level of ignorance. Some are clever enough to make more in a month than I do in a year.

@lostn, you have enough sense to recognize a scam, and that is good. There's no way to play a part in it without becoming a victim in the end. Heed the good advice given to you here.

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 5:56 pm

Mules are recruited both for cashing fake checks and receiving transfers. In both scenarios, the mule IS in fact a criminal.

Keeping the money is both unethical and illegal. When you receive and keep that money, you become an accomplice to the original theft. You can (and should) end up in jail, and you will get no sympathy from law enforcement (or anybody here for that matter). You are not stealing from the scammers--that money is coming directly from victims, and by keeping it for yourself, you are actually attempting to keep a victim's money.

Even if you had no idea, you could be charged, because as the account owner, you are liable for ensuring you are aware of the source of any deposits (whether by check or transfer). Whether you hand your bank account information to a scammer or you receive and cash their checks, you chose to accept that deposit without verifying it was legitimate, period. If you are an innocent victim who forwarded money and had no understanding of what was happening, in many cases the authorities will show leniency (the bank, on the other hand, will demand every penny back, plus fines, if they are out anything).

But the moment you decide to keep the money (and it won't be hard for them to discover that), you have just shown that you are NOT innocent. The police will come to one of two conclusions: (a) you believed you had a job, and you chose to steal from your employer; or (b) you knew the money was stolen, and you chose to double-cross the thieves who stole it. Either conclusion makes you guilty of a serious crime. The police will not be sympathetic, nor should they be.

A few points from Microsoft about mules:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/30/ms_money_mule_victims/

Quote:

Mules act as middlemen who receive funds from compromised bank accounts before sending the bulk of the cash overseas to the organisers of scams, who are often based in eastern Europe and unable to receive funds from compromised accounts directly.

Quote:

Whether they are witting or unwitting1 accomplices to cybercrime, money mules are far more likely to be arrested, and when the dust settles, they'll be out of pocket as banks reverse fraudulent transactions.

Quote:

Mules fall within the reach of Western police forces - and banks are getting more efficient at detecting and reversing fraudulent transactions, a process that plunges mules' accounts heavily into the red just after they have wired funds to fraudsters.

As to turning the checks over to local police--there will be nothing they can do. You are in their jurisdiction, but the people who arranged the transfer are not. In the US, internet crimes are handled by IC3--other countries typically have designated organizations as well. If the scams involve checks, and they are sent through the mail, then a mail fraud report can be filed with the US post office.

Baiting Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Posts: 21158

Quote:

receive funds from compromised bank accounts before sending the bulk of the cash overseas to the organisers of scams, who are often based in eastern Europe and unable to receive funds from compromised accounts directly.

I wonder if this may be more about unwilling to be directly linked to the scam than being unable?

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:11 pm

As TheFae says, there is a lot of good advice here. To summarize some key issues involved:

In most instances you would not be receiving any real funds in any form. You can't keep non-existent money.
Most of the time you'll be sent a fake check. Lads sometimes claim to send bank transfers; typically what happens then is that a "mule" (unsuspecting victim who makes and mails the fake checks) takes a fake check into a local branch of your bank and deposits it to your account number. This is not common, but it does happen.
Not all lads are ignorant! Lack of familiarity with some aspects of foreign culture or language does not mean they're stupid. For sure, there are some incompetent smallbois trying to emulate their compatriots, but they are in the minority. Don't underestimate scammers. Advance Fee Fraud is a huge problem precisely because so many of the lads are smart and successful.
If you cash a fake check, you are committing a crime. Unfair as it may be, when the bank goes looking for someone to blame, the person who cashed the check is the easiest one to pin for the crime. Many victims have been fined or jailed.
The odds of your local police tracking down a scammer in another country are essentially nil. It is outside their jurisdiction. You'd have to be dealing with fraud at a massive level before you could even hope for law enforcement action. Police resources are stretched thin; they have to choose their priorities carefully.
If you want to bait these guys, by all means go for it! BUT -- use a fake name and anonymous email address. And NEVER have anything sent to your home or work. You need a safe "drop-box" for that. If you become a Premium Member, you can get access to such a box. Then just mark the check FAKE so you can't be accused of even thinking of passing a counterfeit financial instrument, and go right ahead and claim to the lad that you decided to keep his money. Good for some laughs.

Edit: Ninja'd by Dorothy. Wink

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:22 pm

@nextvictim:

In the case of transfers from phished accounts:

Quote:

I wonder if this may be more about unwilling to be directly linked to the scam than being unable?

It is usually a case of "unable."

If the thieves could receive the whole sum without having to rely on a mule, they would. That's why many have started using prepaid cards to launder part or all of the money. The April 13th article here gives a pretty good overview of this: http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/money-mules/ The problem for the thieves is that sudden money transfers to Eastern European accounts will trigger some major security flags, and the transfers will likely be stopped before the thief gets his hands on the money.

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:57 pm

Juan Freizwidatt wrote:

If you want to bait these guys, by all means go for it! BUT -- use a fake name and anonymous email address. And NEVER have anything sent to your home or work. You need a safe "drop-box" for that. If you become a Premium Member, you can get access to such a box. Then just mark the check FAKE so you can't be accused of even thinking of passing a counterfeit financial instrument, and go right ahead and claim to the lad that you decided to keep his money. Good for some laughs.

Or you could pretend to send the money by WU/MG, and run into so much trouble that you get the lad to cough up a bank account, then get the bank account shut down (or at least monitored). Finding scammers' bank accounts is part of the important work we do here. It can result in the lad being arrested, but you'll probably never know you helped get someone arrested — unless/until you die and God tells you "Well done!".

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 29 Apr 2012 Posts: 4

wowwow wrote:

In the eyes on the law yes. Ignorance has never been a defense in the law.
I'm sorry I didn't know drink driving then accidentally killing someone was the same as murder. *jail door slams*

I think there is a little bit of difference between the two examples. Drink driving (over the allowed limit) is illegal in all cases any way you look at it. But cashing a cheque is not always illegal. What you're ignorant of in this case is not the whether it's legal or not to cash a cheque, but whether the money was stolen or not.

If you're a genuine victim (and I would imagine that almost all people who fall for these "job offers" are), I think it's pretty harsh that you end up taking all the responsibility for this.

Quote:

Firstly, these people have no other intention but to scam you. They will not risk sending you any 'real' money in case you do what you are suggesting.
The check is fake and will often take weeks or months to bounce. You would have most probably sent the lads share to them, who may be long gone and even suggested you do it again.

In this case, if the cheque ends up being fake, you can't be prosecuted for any wrong doing (at least for money laundering) because it was your own money you sent and nothing was stolen, correct?

Quote:

Even if you were to help the lad receive and launder real money it is a really stupid thing to do. Lads are criminals, they deal in criminal ways and have criminal contacts worldwide. Trying to rip off criminals is pretty stupid.
So whoever you are, please drop the idea, go back to being a normal law abiding person and earn money the real way. Hard work and effort.

I asked my question sounding like I intended to scam a scammer, but it was really more of a hypothetical. I was aware enough of the risks to not likely go through with it, but I just wanted to know if anyone else tried what would happen exactly. Just out of curiosity really.

Quote:

Even if you had no idea, you could be charged, because as the account owner, you are liable for ensuring you are aware of the source of any deposits (whether by check or transfer). Whether you hand your bank account information to a scammer or you receive and cash their checks, you chose to accept that deposit without verifying it was legitimate, period. If you are an innocent victim who forwarded money and had no understanding of what was happening, in many cases the authorities will show leniency (the bank, on the other hand, will demand every penny back, plus fines, if they are out anything).

I didn't know that, but what happens if money is sent to your account without asking? For example, I can't stop you from sending money to me if you wanted to. It wasn't my decision to "accept" your transfer because it does not require the recipient's approval to send them money. As far as I know, it's not illegal to give bank account details to people?

At this point it's all hypothetical. I was never seriously intending to do this. Just wanted to know what happens.

Quote:

If you cash a fake check, you are committing a crime. Unfair as it may be, when the bank goes looking for someone to blame, the person who cashed the check is the easiest one to pin for the crime. Many victims have been fined or jailed.

Doesn't the bank need to check the account of the sender for funds before the money goes through, and if the account doesn't exist or there is not enough money, it gets canceled and no one's money is lost?

Quote:

Keeping the money is both unethical and illegal. When you receive and keep that money, you become an accomplice to the original theft. You can (and should) end up in jail, and you will get no sympathy from law enforcement (or anybody here for that matter). You are not stealing from the scammers--that money is coming directly from victims, and by keeping it for yourself, you are actually attempting to keep a victim's money.

You wouldn't be keeping the money for yourself. The transfer into your account is going to get reversed in the end right? They'll get their money back. All you're doing is keeping it from going to the scammers. Illegal, maybe. I don't see it as unethical personally.

Quote:

If you want to bait these guys, by all means go for it! BUT -- use a fake name and anonymous email address. And NEVER have anything sent to your home or work. You need a safe "drop-box" for that. If you become a Premium Member, you can get access to such a box. Then just mark the check FAKE so you can't be accused of even thinking of passing a counterfeit financial instrument, and go right ahead and claim to the lad that you decided to keep his money. Good for some laughs.

Baiting them sounds like fun, but it all sounds too risky now. I'm new to this and might accidentally screw something up and unwittingly commit a crime. Sounds too easy for something to go wrong.

If a scammer is operating from another country, do his crimes in your country fall under the jurisdiction of his own country? Can law enforcement in his own country do anything about his crimes? Why aren't people catching these guys from the other end? Is it impractical/impossible or do their governments just not care enough?

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 30 Mar 2012 Posts: 949

Quote:

If a scammer is operating from another country, do his crimes in your country fall under the jurisdiction of his own country? Can law enforcement in his own country do anything about his crimes? Why aren't people catching these guys from the other end? Is it impractical/impossible or do their governments just not care enough?

The number "419" refers to the criminal code in Nigeria which makes AFF scams illegal. The fact this site exists give you a hint about how well that law is enforced.

eta: Please stick around and learn about baiting. You don't have to bait this particular scam if you aren't comfortable doing so. Sign up for a mentor if you haven't already, there are veterans here who can help you get started safely baiting and having a blast while wasting a lads time and resources, not to mention keeping them away from potential real victims.

Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:16 am

lostn wrote:

If you're a genuine victim (and I would imagine that almost all people who fall for these "job offers" are), I think it's pretty harsh that you end up taking all the responsibility for this.

It is harsh. No question. But it happens. Just read some posts on Scamwarners. It's a shame when victims are victimized again, but as the person who passes the bad check, and being locally-based, such victims often end up trapped.

Quote:

In this case, if the cheque ends up being fake, you can't be prosecuted for any wrong doing (at least for money laundering) because it was your own money you sent and nothing was stolen, correct?

As far as banks are concerned, you violate the law by cashing a bad check. Again, it's unfair, but it's the reality. Most of the time, with printouts of emails, people do get off. But not without a lot of hassle.

Quote:

what happens if money is sent to your account without asking?

In real terms, that wouldn't happen. Who is going to send you money, to your bank account, without you knowing? Besides, most of these scams concern fake checks.

Quote:

Doesn't the bank need to check the account of the sender for funds before the money goes through, and if the account doesn't exist or there is not enough money, it gets canceled and no one's money is lost?

Nope. Unfortunately that's not the way it works. Under US law the banks must make the funds available to you within a couple of days, but it can take weeks or even months for a check to get back to the issuing bank and be determined as fake. Under the law, you are responsible, not the banks. It may not be fair, but it's the law.

Quote:

You wouldn't be keeping the money for yourself. The transfer into your account is going to get reversed in the end right? They'll get their money back. All you're doing is keeping it from going to the scammers. Illegal, maybe. I don't see it as unethical personally.

That's really parsing words since in reality there is no money. You are the one passing a fraudulent financial instrument. At least that's the way the law sees it. It's not a question ethics, it's law.

Quote:

Baiting them sounds like fun, but it all sounds too risky now.

It's not risky if you use a fake name, fake email, and a drop box. And -- you don't even dream of trying to cash a check. I have a stack of fake checks here, all carefully marked as such. They're fun to show to friends, especially the one from "Wal-Mart", with an address for an apartment in Houston. Who knew such a big company worked out of an apartment. Laughing

Quote:

If a scammer is operating from another country, do his crimes in your country fall under the jurisdiction of his own country? Can law enforcement in his own country do anything about his crimes? Why aren't people catching these guys from the other end? Is it impractical/impossible or do their governments just not care enough?

Most of the countries from which these scams operate have corrupt governments and law enforcement. They may be crimes but they are rarely prosecuted, unless they are huge in scale. And even then, it's very, very rare.

We sure wish we could get more law enforcement involvement, but making a case is no easy matter. We're left with our own devices. We can't throw them in jail, but we can sure make their lives miserable. That's a big part of what we do. But -- we also get bank account number from them, and get authorities to shut them down. We get the stolen credit card numbers they use and report them to the companies. We shut down their fake websites. We may not throw many lads in jail (though sometimes we do, hence some badges in baiters' signatures) but we can hurt them really badly. Killing fake sites is one of the most effective tools we have. Give it a try. Taking down a fake site disrupts a lad's business and takes money out of his pocket. Making and hosting sites costs them. Getting them shut down is a serious world of hurt.

Join the fight and have some fun!

Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:04 pm

The best thing to do with "fake" checks is to receive them through the Eater drop box (become a premium member to us), when they come in I open the envelopes mark them FAKE and email them on to the baiter(s) who did the bait and they post in this thread. http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=100200

Or for the cost of postage I will send them on AFTER I have marked them FAKE and the recipient can use them was wallpaper or frame them.

Part time job.. can I keep their money?	View next topic View previous topic