The Saskatchewan RCMP Commercial Crime Section would like to advise the public about fraud attempts occurring in Saskatchewan involving counterfeit cheques or money orders.
This type of fraud has been the subject of several complaints which had the potential to cause significant financial loss to victims. The RCMP is committed to promoting safe homes and safe communities and one of our major priorities is Economic Integrity.
The scam typically involves a fraudster who poses as a buyer responding to an advertisement placed by a Saskatchewan resident trying to sell an item or rent a property.
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The fraudster tells the seller that he lives out of the country or out of the province or in another town. He or she negotiates a price with the seller then sends a cheque that is significantly more than the negotiated price.
The cheque the fraudster sends to the seller, however, is counterfeit.
The fraudster then instructs the seller to deposit the cheque into the seller’s bank account with further instructions for the seller to send the fraudster the overpayment by an electronic money transfer or other form of rapid payment.
If the seller follows the fraudster’s instructions, the seller will have sent their own legitimate money from their own account to the fraudster before they find out that the cheque the fraudster gave them was counterfeit and worthless.
If the seller follows the instructions of the fraudster they will experience a significant financial loss – the difference between the negotiated sales price and the overpayment arranged by the fraudster.
A recent case near Saskatoon involved a fraudster posing as a buyer who wanted to purchase a motorhome.
The fraudster/buyer sent the person trying to sell the motorhome a counterfeit United States Postal Money Order for double the amount of the asking price.
The fraudster/buyer then asked the person selling the motorhome to provide a money order or cash for the overpayment when the motorhome was to be picked up.
The owner of the motorhome did their due diligence and consulted with a banker who detected a likelihood of fraud and the owner of the motorhome did not complete the transaction. As a result, the owner of the motorhome did not lose any money.
Another case involved a Saskatchewan resident wishing to purchase an expensive item on a popular internet auction site. The seller stated that they were from the U.S., but had recently gone to Greece to attend to a family matter.
The seller advised that, since he was in Greece, the buyer could not use the available protective measures to protect her purchase on the internet auction site. The seller got the buyer to send a real money order, in Euro currency, through a global money transferring service for the item and the buyer lost over $2,000. The item was never sent to the buyer.
The Saskatchewan RCMP Commercial Crime Sections also caution the public to be diligent and skeptical of “too good to be true” money-making schemes.
In a recent incident, a Regina-area resident was asked to cash a cheque for a foreign “corporation.” The cheque turned out to be counterfeit and luckily the potential victim did not lose any money.
It is very important to ensure that a cheque, money order, or other form of payment you receive from an unknown source is not counterfeit. The public should be suspicious:
* if provided with a third party cheque
* if offered more than the asking price
* if asked to clear cheques or forward money to unknown individuals
* if asked by foreign companies or governments to provide services as a “Canadian Representative”
* if asked to use less secure or anonymous methods of transferring money when there are more safe options available; or
* if asked for access to their personal bank accounts.
People should always be suspicious if something seems to be too good to be true.
The Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commercial Crime Sections and the local Better Business Bureau can be contacted for further information on this topic.
The RCMP is actively working in local communities, with financial institutions, and with other law enforcement and government agencies to combat these types of frauds against the public. The RCMP website is a good source for information on scams affecting the Canadian public, and can be viewed at:
