What a crazy 2 weeks it has been I literally have so much to talk about that I will be posting 2 blogs this week (if I find the time). In the last 2 weeks I have had myself and my bank account succumb to a scam and had to deal with the bank and all my finances (2 days before my direct deposit hit my acct.), my son, father and I had both THE BEST and WORST day fishing (in the same day) we have had ...ever, my Daughter got married (I was the officiant), my mother-in-law decided to try to break her spine... yes break her spine, my son, daughter (another one) and I volunteered at the KC Comic Con and I received my official ordination. This may seem like a lot in 2 weeks and it really was but it doesn't feel like it and I am still alive and look forward to more. With 7 kids and a grandbaby there is always fun to be had right around the corner.
In this blog post I want to talk about the scam and my bank acct. I am quite embarrassed as to my naivety and how easily I was duped but I believe this is good to share as it may help one of you or a loved one, in the future, to understand what I went through and how this scam actually works.
I highlight this as I know this a huge thing right now and to be honest I would never have believed I could've fallen for such a stupid scam. We never seem to believe it could happen to us ... until it does.
So on a bright and sunny Tuesday I received a call from a company claiming they had found my application for an online loan. I have used this avenue (online loans) many times in the past couple years to help get over rough spots in our finances, so this seemed perfectly natural, mind you this is where the "perfectly natural" ends everything after this set off sirens and bells in my head that something just didn't seem right. They had ALL of my information and I mean ALL of my information including the last 4 of my social. Now I know you can buy lists of info from companies all over the internet, with peoples information but rarely can you get such a comprehensive list (or so I thought). The person on the other end of the line stated that they had received my loan application from a group called OLA. This is a real organization and ironically they were set up to fight or more prevent this type of thing from happening.
The guy on the line said they could secure me a loan of $5000 to be paid back at $154 a month for the next 36 months. With my daughter about to be married and a slew of other things I could use this kind of money for, I continued to talk with the guy. He said they simply needed to deposit $2k into my account today and that I was to immediately send the money back via wire transfer the next morning. Now as I said I am familiar with online loans and online bill pays and all of them go through what is called ACH. I do not know what that exactly stands for but it is a secured way for companies to send you money and for you to setup the auto bill pay for each month. the guy on the other end of the line stated that they did not use ACH and that this was just a different way to send and receive money.
Ok let me stop right here and explain a few things;
1. I am not in the banking industry and I don't know how everything works (but this did set off an alarm in my head...which I ignored) so this seemed reasonable.
2. I could not understand, if they were going to put money into my acct. and all I was doing was sending it back, how anyone would get hurt or "burned"
3. As a father of 6, $5000 is a lot of money that I could use and I wanted to surprise my wife with the ability to get herself a vehicle and some new clothes (or whatever she needed).
So needless to say I ignored that little voice in my head that said "dude, I can't put my finger on it, but something just isn't right here". So I agreed to let them put the money into my account. Oddly enough they had all of my acct. information (including my routing number and all). They were adamant about making sure I was at Walmart to transfer the money back the next morning first thing. This seemed odd but later I figured out why. For those of you in the financial industry you already understand what is going on here but I did not. The next morning I wake up and I see 2 checks had been deposited into my acct. both in excess of $900. One had been "cleared" the other was on hold for what was approximate a week. So I got up and left the house to transfer the money back to them. When I got to the money gram place I called the guy from the "loan" place as instructed and he walked me through filling out the transfer form. I have filled these out before to help friends but this seemed odd as I only had a name and the city and state to fill out. The guy told me to send the $1800 back and explained that only the 900 and change had cleared, so he asked me exactly how much was in the acct., when I tried to log into my acct. it had been locked. These 2 things (the weird sending instructions and the locked out acct.) set of alarms in my head that I could no longer ignore. I told the guy on the phone I would transfer the money and call him back. As I walked out the Walmart doors I immediately called the fraud line for my bank. As I was on hold to speak to someone, I received a phone call from my bank, it was the fraud dept. and they needed to talk with me right away and they left a number to reach them at. I hung up my call and called the number they left. It was immediate explained that I had been a victim of fraud and not to attempt to do anything with my acct. until we got it all sorted out. At this point I am still trying to figure out how anyone could get hurt as I still did not understand how, if they put money in my acct. and I was just giving back, that anyone was going to be deceived/hurt/burned etc. The woman from the bank explained that this group was under investigation and they had several counterfeit checks from them and that the check they had put into my acct. were in fact "bad" checks. After speaking with her in the parking lot for what seemed like an hour, she instructed me to go to my branch office and had me open a second acct. and that this acct. would be closed once the Direct deposit had gone through and they could transfer that money to the new acct. but they wanted to hold my "old" acct. for the investigation. long story short they were able to clear everything up and get me taken care of but if I had transferred the money with money gram I would have been liable for all the money I had transferred.
On the way from the Walmart to the bank it dawned on me (like a brick to the head) here is how this works. Now pay attention, when you deposit a check into your acct. your bank clears a certain amount for you to use so that you are not stuck without any money while that check is being processed. This is a fabulous service the bank provides and is needed (I remember when this wasn't true and you HAD to wait for the check to clear) any money you spend, of that cleared amount is taken against the check once it completes processing. Now if the check does not clear you have to pay back the money you spent (and some additional fees) in this case if I had transferred the money via MoneyGram I would have been liable for the entire $900.
In my case everything turned out fairly ok and I was reasonable unscathed but the bank told me that people get hit with this everyday that don't figure out what happened until it is too late.
Let me share a few things I learned from this:
1. Always speak with your partner about your financial decisions. If I had talked to my wife she would probably have seen the scam before it happened. I knew I should speak with her but I ignored this thought because I wanted to surprise her (and I did :))
2. NEVER NEVER NEVER ignore the sirens that go off in your head that tell you something is wrong. There is a reason those are there. I am told (no research mind you) that the fraud prevention folks for the United States Treasury Dept. study the real bills that are printed, so carefully that even the slightest misprint in a forgery can easily be detected... the point? they do not study all the counterfeits that would be impossible but when they see something isn't right they know that something isn't right, they may not know exactly what right away but they just know that it's not right. We do the same thing everyday and don't realize it. If you walked into a store and thought you had walked into a Target but you saw that everything had a blue border or décor and the telltale yellow smiley face you would quickly realize you were in a Walmart.
DO NOT IGNORE YOUR BRAIN TELLING YOU SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT HERE.
3. If in doubt about how banking works (or anything else) pick up the phone. I know most of the folks reading this blog do so on cell phones or tablets. It is easy to dial your banks number and just talk to them, they will guide you. Believe me, they don't want to get screwed over any more than you do.
It is my deepest desire that this helps at least 1 or 2 of you. Things are tough out there for most us financially and it is easy to see how the idea of a reasonable loan or quick money is a very big temptation to put logic aside and take a chance. I always encourage my children to take risks but there is a right way to take risks and a wrong way. Ignoring all the signs of a bad risk is the most sure way of come out the bad side of that risk.
Until next time cast a big net and keep tight lines
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