Beware of check fraud in Coventry
COVENTRY - "If
it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,"
warned Det. Marcos Saenko of the Coventry Police
Department, reciting the mantra at the
department's fraud sector.
According to Saenko, in mid-December, the
department received a report concerning a woman
who had been the recipient of seven American
Express gift checks, $500 a piece, through the
United Parcel Services (UPS).
The checks, Saenko said, were sent from God's
Property Incorp., a fictitious company,
supposedly based out of Garland, Texas. In
actuality, the checks were a part of a financial
scam in Nigeria, with the goal of convincing
people to wire money overseas in exchange for a
phony monetary reward.
"See what happens is a lot of people, they go
onto the Internet and they start chatting with
people from other countries, especially from the
United Kingdom," said Saenko, pointing out that
the contact email address included with the
counterfeit checks was a United Kingdom address.
The scam works like this: a fabricated company,
most commonly originated from another country,
sends out random mailings, en masse, to
individuals all over the United States. Included
in the mailing is usually some form of
counterfeit currency and a letter of
instruction.
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