Lottery Cheque Scam

This type of fraud is a combination between the lottery and the job scams. Here your sensitive personal information is not at risk as much as you will most likely face serious legal problems.

It all starts when you receive an email. It claims that you have won a pile of cash in a lottery. Unfortunately, in order to be able to receive your winnings you have to send some money to cover various legal and administrative expenses. But, hey, good news! The scammers offer to send you a check which will cover these expenses.

So, as promised you receive the cheque and you cash it in the bank. If you are smart, you will for the cheque to be cleared. Otherwise it could be forged and if you have already wired the money, then you will have to repay the money you supposedly send.

But you are clever and you wait. Good news! The cheque is cleared and you can now safely wire the funds and wait for your millions. That is exactly what the criminals what you to think. The truth is that you have successfully laundered a stolen cheque. Congratulations!

Please remember that you must have entered a lottery in order to be able to win it. Otherwise even people who are aware of various types of scams can become victims here, because criminals don’t seem to want anything from you and the cheque is legitimate.

In some occasions this fraud is performed via surface mail. In this case the cheques come along with the initial letter. Be aware that cheque laundering is also common on eBay.com. Criminals can try to pay you for a product by check.

It doesn’t matter how you have received the cheque, what it does matter is that you will face very serious legal consequences. You will be guilty of passing a counterfeit cheque and laundering money, which means – federal prison.

What to do if I receive an unsolicited cheque?

First of all, you should treat any cheque you receive, with unknown source, with utmost suspicion. You can check the name of the bank that has issued the cheque and contact them. You can ask them if any cheques were reported stolen or if the account number is legitimate or if the account has sufficient funds.

You can go the Consumer Fraud Reporting website and use the cheque routing feature to track down the bank’s number. You can call them and request the information you need.

In case it is too late and you have already laundered the money, you should contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center and file a report.

Or you can contact us. We will issue a report to the center and make articles on your particular case, so that in future people who visit this department will be informed of the newest frauds out there.

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