Securities: Securities Investor Protection Corporation warns of cheque fraud
Gosh, it's hard work reading American fraud warnings. If only they would learn to spell "cheque" their warnings would make far more sense, much more immediately.
The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC)maintains a special reserve fund mandated by Congress to protect the customers of insolvent brokerage firms.
The SIPC has become aware of a resurgence in a form of fraud that involves the presentation of counterfeit cheques. The SIPC issued a similar warning in May this year.
"In more than a dozen cases so far, one or more individuals have presented the phony SIPC cheques to "pay" for an item on Craigslist or in face-to-face transactions, or to "pay" for services advertised on Craigslist. The most recent victims were supposed to be engaged as drivers or personal assistants. In some cases, the bad- cheque-passer or -passers are trying to purchase items or services for less than the face value of the phony cheque and then asking for the balance in return or for the balance to be forwarded to a third party.
"As far as SIPC is aware, many of these cheques arrive in a hand-addressed envelope with a return address in Indiana. Although one victim has stated that the fraudulent check was in excess of USD30,000, most cheques are USD5,000 or less. No SIPC funds have been stolen in this scheme."
(and, yes, we've fixed the spelling - and corrected some of the grammar).
SIPC officials said the fake cheques include a genuine SIPC account number - for an account that is used only for deposits. No cheques of any kind are issued on the account in question.
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