This person friended me from an online game I played asking if I wanted to be paid to be a penpal. I’m familiar with a lot of phishing scams and other sorts of scams but I’ve never seen a scam like this one. What exactly is this person trying to get from me, are they hoping to infect my device with something sinister or are they trying to phish information from me without me knowing it? They seem to put a lotta emphasis on me VIEWING this photo they’re gonna send me and it makes me think that whatever they’re gonna send me must be infected with some sort of trojan. Can someone explain to me what’s going on here?
might be after your account and routing numbers on the checks
It’s called remote deposit cheque fraud. It’s a fake cheque. If you cash it, it will eventually get flagged as a a fake, and the bank will take the money back, even if you’ve already spent it or sent it to the scammer. And if you never send money to the scammer, they get nothing, but it also costs them nothing to make the attempt, because you’re the one depositing the cheque and wearing the risk.
What happened to checks needing to be cleared first by banks? Do they just accept them now and deal with it later?
I haven’t used a check in… 30 years I think.
Depending on the amount and the history of the customer cashing it you may get the funds right away. Probably not for a 1000$ but less then 200 or so. Eventually it will clear and you’ll get boned if it was bad.
The way I understand it, scammers use the most incapable, podunk banks possible so it takes the most amount of time to fully clear a check, usually hoping that the mark will cash it in and send the scammer a portion of the bad check, so the mark is left with the bag. From the mark’s bank’s pov, the mark has spent more money than they were ever entitled to.
I find it so weird that parts of the world never moved away from the cheque system. I used my last one mid-90s or so.
SEPA bank transfers are cheap and real time.
On top that cheque system is so ripe for fraud.
And then those parts of the world scoff at parts where people don’t use a credit card for every little thing.
Most banks will, as a courtesy, deposit a certain amount immediately while the remainder waits to be cleared. My bank will pre-deposit $500 of any check and then the rest several days later. Or at least they used to. It’s been like 10 years since I had to depsoit a check.
Ooohhhh okay
I’m just here to say nice username
They are trying to get you to deposit a counterfeit check. It most likely wouldn’t clear your bank, but if it did, you end up on the hook for the entire amount of the check with no money, and they get the amount that you sent “back” to them.
I used to deal with these types of scams all the time on Craigslist. These guys aren’t even pretending to be legit anymore it seems.
I’m genuinely surprised that any business still accepts cheques.
100% a scam - I fell for it from a Fiverr account, scalpers will find any prior relationship and use it to get bitcoin.
Report and move on.
Scam. Incredibly obvious scam, so much so that frankly I’m surprised you think you might be paranoid.
It’s because the other piece was still missing: how they actually get money from OP, which comes after the original “payment” goes through.
I’m going to outline this so everyone knows how this works in detail. There’s a number of comments talking about metadata, but this is remote check fraud.
The key dialogue is here:
“Okay the check will be written here then I’ll take picture of the check front and back then send it to you and you preview it on your laptop or iPad then you log in your bank app and take the snapshot to the provided space and you get the money”
Phase 1
- Fraudster sends an image of a check through e-mail
- You use your computer to view the check
- You then use your phone’s bank app to deposit the check
- Your bank is required by US Law to make up to $500 available immediately
Phase 2
- The fraudster makes an excuse of why they can’t do it any more or mentions that they over paid
- They ask you to send money through an untracable manner (Bitcoin, gift cards, etc)
- They may say something like you keep some for your effort or just lean on your kindness
- Your bank realizes that this check is fake or been used already
- You bank withdraws that amount from your account
This isn’t an unusual scam, but it’s technically illegal for you to deposit a picture of a check. You need the original.
Best to block and report them.
I agree up until “can’t deposit a picture of a check.” Mobile banking does exactly that.
So the material issue here is the picture must be taken of the physical check and the physical check must be producible for several months after the deposit. You can’t take a picture using the app of a picture of the check.
Acknowledge
scam. every photo you take with wny device has metadata. dont send them anything. block them immediately. dont even say bye.
DON’T DO IT. Just say you did. Lie to them for as long as possible. If they ask for proof you can’t give them, pretend to be dumb af and not understand their instructions.
If a clanker calls you, keep feeding them bogus instructions until they enter an inifite loop to waste their tokens. Kitboga has a YouTube video showing how to do it easily.
Sounds to me like there is a virus attached to the image she wants you to ‘view’ so desperately. I forgot what that type of virus is called. But clearly the one she has seems to only work on a laptop or ipad. Guessing Android blocks this.
Our laptop runs Linux. I kinda wonder what would happen if someone tried that on us. :3
(not that Linux is inherently more secure, it’s just way more obscure and they probably wouldn’t have a hack prepared for our particular setup)
– Frost
So at this point you know what it is, you know how to avoid being scammed, and you are aware that the most optimal way to deal with these people is to just block them and move on.
With all these things known, you can waste their time by pretending to have trouble depositing the check, saying the deposit went through while doing nothing, saying it worked and then playing hard to get with their “overpayment return” (usually they play on good Samaritan/pay it forward kind of guilt, so just pretend to be an asshole), and fucking with them every step of the way.
Atomic Shrimp on YouTube has done a bunch of these, if you’d rather live vicariously rather than expose yourself.
Yes it’s a scam, they probably want you to buy something right? They’re going to try and send you a fake check, in which they will ask you to digitally cash it in so it doesn’t go through a teller. The check doesn’t actually get checked by anyone due a couple days so you would have effectively stolen money. Then once they convince you to buy something for yourself and/or for themselves they basically fuck off then the bank would be like hey that check wasn’t real, instead of reporting you/done this is the first time we’ll just charge your account for the check.
If your still adamant on them being real, take the check to a teller at the bank. Make sure the check is physical. Make sure the sender it matches their name and the bank is actually real (by the routing numbers not the logo on it)
Wait, checks are still not automatically cryptographically verified in seconds? How is anyone still using this?
Idk, there’s just quick checks, ig banks just trust ya 🤷♀️
Until they check manually in a labor-intensive process and you are punished again for having been scammed. It’s inefficient and the wrong people pay the price.
This would require the bank industry to invest in technology, and that would cost money. Banks are for making money, not spending it. Charge just enough to the consumers to cover whatever losses are brought about by the archaic system and you successfully pass on all losses to the account holders.
Report them
Props to you for being curious and inquisitive and having the knowledge it’s a scam. Don’t let others bring you off your digging (without endangering yourself).
