scam!

Hi there

Having read about part time work for charity and being totally naive , I filled in an application for a charity fund raiser vacancy!t was posted on Gum tree, so after filling in this I received an email!

I sent off asking for more details, and then I received the email about the

cashing travellers cheques/bankers cheques so then I started to sense ahh yes a scam!!

However I was extremely shocked to find $3000 dollars in a white envelope in my mat the very next morning! I had not accepted this and had ben foolish enough to send my details (no bank details) though I was expecting a job application not 3k


So just wondering what this is all about, it is not a cheque, so I would not be putting it into my account???

What should I do next! I have emailed the guy asking for a return address...............but I received just a random address that was not even spelt correctly!


Any information on this would be greatly received




SAVE OUR SOUL FOUNDATION

Dear Caroline,
Thank you for prompt response to our listed ad on the site.you will read all the information below to ensure you have enough information and details about your work.so if you are interested in working with us you should send an email to request for the application form.once we recieve the email we will respond back asap.

Hi and welcome,

That certainly is unusual, I have never heard of that before, perhaps one of the others here have.

The only thing I can think of is to report it to the Police, it certainly sounds like a scam but I cant tell how it works just yet.

Perhaps another person has been "employed" and is to pass the money onto you but that makes little sense as well.

If you could post the email address and the email correspondance it may help.

I just did a little searching, you had said it was the "save our soul foundation" just checking but to be sure it was not "save our souls foundation.

I got a search result on both which are Here

and, Here

The first one definately doesn't look right, the second I am undecided.

Hi shortbread34 and welcome to Scamwarners. You are definitely in the right place.

Some of these scammers can get a little ahead of themselves and will send a fake payment to people like yourself as soon as you have given them your address rather than wait for an official job application. So yes you have had a fake payment from a scammer delivered to your front door. Now, most importantly you are not in personal danger if you do not comply with the scammer wishes.

The best course of action would be to simply ignore any further communications from the scammer, be that either telephone, cellphone or email. The temptation to commicate with the scammer again is great but it really is best to ignore him. Another good idea is to either destroy or deface the fake payment.

Many innocent victims who get to this point in the scam where they have received the fake payment, but now realise that it is a scam become more than a little concerned about their personal safety. In reality you stand a greater chance of being run over by a bus than being harmed by the scammer. So rest easy on that point.

But please take care in your future job applications and good luck.

However I was extremely shocked to find $3000 dollars in a white envelope in my mat the very next morning!.

Cash? If so, I can only think it's fake currency and that you're being used to launder it. I'd expect a request to send most of it on via Western Union though.
Scammers don't give away real money.

Hi again shortbread,

Sorry for any confusion I may have caused. If you've found cash or money orders at your front door in the white envelope then my earlier advice won't really help. But it certainly sounds dodgy and you can assume that it's either counterfeit or money the scammers want you to launder.

Peta

I hadn't thought of it being fake cash but I guess that is a possibility, I am not up to date on fake currency but back in the olden days the fake bills all had the same serial number, is that still the case? if so, have the bills serials numbers been checked, Again without knowing if this is correct but perhaps the mint of your country could check the serial numbers for you.

In Australia we dont often see fake currency as our notes are plastic and apparently the most difficult to counterfiet

It would also be highly unusual for a scammer to place the currency under a door mat, I thought that was only done in the movies, I guess a courier may do it with specific instructions.

I am interested to find out more about this, it may well be the latest idea in stealing money to make it all seem more realistic.


Shortbread, anything further you could provide would be greatly appreciated

Hi shortbread34

Your best bet with this one is to take the envelope and it's contents down to your local police station as soon as possible. Try to handle the envelope as little as possible in the meantime.
Also take copies of all email correspondence that you've had regarding this matter along with you.

Hi, the organisation is meant to be called Save our soul foundation. I received $3000 in travellers cheques , they were not placed under my mat but posted from London to my address!

I have emailed the person who 'employed' me Smith Coles, and asked for a contact address and he pulled one from somewhere , so I then emailed him and told him I would send the cheques back to there and he became nervous and said that I need to go get them and post them to an address he would provide!

I then told him that they had already been sent (they havent) , to his contact address in Gosport and he became very anxious over the $3000.

So I'm not sure if perhaps they are real and he just wanted me to be a mule?

He basically said that I was to cash them in, at a currency exchange etc then forward the remaining minus my 10%. It had not been disclosed as yet how I was to forward it, I am assuming by Western Union!

I have googled this one hundred times and I only seem to find where bankers cheques need to be paid into someone account, only for them to find out they cheques were fake and by this time the money had already been sent via Western union!
However I have not been asked to deposit a cheque into my account, so I am wondering is this the latest way to launder money?? If the travellers cheques are fake, they would not be accepted at the currency exchange right? So I am wondering what it is all about!

Just really trying to understand this mess I have found myself in!


Thank you to everyone who has posted, really appreciate the advice and support

Caroline

They are fake.
The scam relies on the teller at the exchange not noticing and you being able to cash them and then forwarding the money on.
Using forged travellers cheques in this way is a very, very common scam - I've literally dealt with hundreds of them.

You're not the mule. The person in Gosport will be the mule. Can you PM either myself or one of the other Scam Warners here the address you have for them? They are probably totally innocent and unaware that they are involved in a scam. If you can give us their details, we can warn them.

Finally - don't worry. You're not in a mess. You haven't lost any cash and you haven't broken any laws.

I don't think there is anyone in Gosport! I asked for a company address , somewhere that I could contact Smith Coles and he gave me a Gosport address! he did not even provide a postcode!

I think because I was asking questions he just pulled an address out of the internet just to pacify me! I asked for contact details and a landline number for the company just to see how they would react!

Like i say, when I told him I had posted them to the Gosport address (the company address ) he became very agitated and asked me to go get the package and stop it being sent to Gosport!!!!

It was mainly just to see how they would react!


So what would have happened if I had taken these travellers cheques to say Thomas Cook or something? What hell could I have found myself in, had they been accepted?

Hi Shortbread,

Disregard my previous comments as I misunderstood what you had written and thought you had received cash.

Travellers cheques are a completey different thing and yes, that is quite common.

(Sorry Peta, you were right )

If you had attempted to cash them then you would have been breaking a law, even if you have no idea they are fake you could still find yourself doing jail time over it, in fact, just having them in your possesion is a criminal offence in most countries.

You could simply write clearly in big letters "FAKE" then keep them as a souvenir or better still, you could take them to the police station complete with any emails you have recieved, if you were given the details of people to send the cheques to then they will most likely be innocent persons who are being scammed so any information sent privately to any admin, moderator, warner or advisor here would be appreciated so we can send them a warning

The basic principle is that the travel agent will most likely cash them and give you access to the money, of course you will need to provide ID in order to cash them, as money has been recieved most people would believe that they were genuine and send the scammer their portion of the money keeping your commission, some time in the future the cheques will be found to be fake and as it is your ID they will be coming after you for the money, you will be liable for the full amount of money you recieved as well as be passed onto the police who would most likely prosecute.

@ shortbread34

Out of interest: what was the postmark on the envelope that the TCs arrived in?

London postmark!

London is where the mule is based then.

Another favour: Could you post as much of the scammer's correspondence as possible along with any email addresses that he used?
Make sure you delete any of your details if there are any.

If he tries to con other people and they Google any of his details, they'll be led here and they'll find out that it's a scam.

Thanks.

So what exactly does the mule do???