Yeah, that's a great movie!

 

Good luck, I hope you name him/her!

 

After a whole night of research on these "Nigerian check scams and check overpayment scams" I'm amazed at all the different ways they have swindled people. They seem to get mostly the elderly and young adults, but many businesses have been scammed as well. A few studies believe this scam costs American consumers $100-300 million per year!!!

Besides the obvious lottery ones, the more clever schemes are:

"accidental overpayments" where they ask for the difference back. This was used on a lot of sellers and businesses.
"payments from someone that owes the buyer money" and they ask for the difference.
"extra payment for a private shipping company" and you wire the extra money to a fake shipper
"buyer changes their mind after paying" and you refund the money

Many think these scammers have a ton of power in Nigeria which is why they've been doing this stuff for over 30 years. They usually need the help of someone in the US to send off the fraudulent checks and a few people have been charged and a serving a pathetic 2 year prison term.

To me the only reason why this crap continues to work is the victims are under the false impression that once a check "clears" the money is good, but the banks have over a month to retract the money from a false check. If this was made much clearer to the public, or if the policy was changed, these scams would stop working.

Just wanted to present my research as a warning to everybody else. I am NEVER taking a personal check as payment.

 

Don't 17 year old kids spend enough time on the Internet to read about people getting scammed?

Good Lord, how difficult can it be to go to a Walmart Customer Service counter and get a money order?

Sorry, but that whole deal is on your bro. I feel bad for him, but come on! $4,300!?

 

I had no idea anyone was ignorant enough to get scammed like this anymore! Seriously, my parents are the least internet savvy people I have ever met and they could tell it was a scam when someone tried it on them.

 

Remember the part when Dicaprio's character trick the hooker (Jennifer Garner)? It cost him $1k to sleep with her but he has a check for $1500 so she gave him $500 for the different. She basically paid him $500 in cash for him to sleep with her. Genius!!!!!

 

Your bro had $4500 on the side at the age of 17? Too bad, but he shoulda known better...

Unfortunately, as long as these scams keep working, this sh1t will go on.

 

the oldest trick in the book and he fell for it? damn! no wonder it still goes on...

hope everything works out for you guys...

 

I got 2 lines into the first post and stopped. I racked up over $100k in fake checks trying to sell my old civic. Eventually I just started pinning them to my wall and making a collection.

This scam has been going on for years and Craigslist has 406598435908 different notices and warning flashing all over the site notifying you (or in this case your brother). Good luck getting any sympathy from the bank.

 

wow this has got to be the dumbest thing i heard all year. 4500-200=4300. wow your bro is just.....