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Nigerian Email Scam Victim Sues Bank, Loses Appeal
reidhellyer writes "From California Litigation Attorney Blog: 'While many victims of the so-called "Nigerian e-mail scam" would be too embarrassed to trumpet that fact, others end up infamous for their victimhood like the appellant in a published opinion of the California Court of Appeal in Riverside. In March 2009, Charles Peters received an email from someone purporting to be a citizen of Malaysia. The e-mail informed Peters that certain third parties in the United States and Canada owed the Malaysian money, but that “they can not transfer the funds to any bank account outside America continent due to their new company policy [sic].” He asked Peters to “assist me in receiving the funds and forward to me.” He offered to pay Peters 12 percent of the money. Peters agreed after apparently negotiating an increase of his fee to 15 percent.'"
You would think by now people would be wary of anything from Nigeria or other African countries.
And if someone can't get their money from the bank there is probably a damn good reason.
Haha, what a tool. Everyone knows that only Nigerian citizens are the real deal.
It may be 7 digits, but at least it's a semiprime
... when the article clearly says it was a Malaysian doing the fraud, and the funds are transferred to a Hong Kong bank?
It's not even close to Africa.
Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
I've been replying to these scammers and offering advice on how better to fool Americans. Sorry.
The man is obviously an idiot not to realize that anyone who would increase the commission to 15% could be negotiated up to 17%.
for his sterilization ( and that of his kids, if he has any ). The sooner we get idiots like him out of the gene pool, the better off we'll be.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I received an e-mail of the latest version of this scam a couple of months ago. This time it was a US Marine trying to get money out of Iraq. After laughing at the idiocy of this I was joking with some friends that "Yeah, I bet the US government would like to get money out of Iraq too. Maybe this Marine should contact them." :P
For the most part of this, it is Charles Peters that is stupid. However, we really do need a system in which we can find out if a check REALLY does clear FINALLY and ONCE AND FOR ALL. It won't be easy to do, because if the account holder the check is drawn on is innocent, and only finds out a month later, they certainly must have a right to void the transfer. So this would have to be some specific number of days after which the check is absolutely as clear as cash. Maybe 100 days?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
i think the problem is that the bank told him the deposits cleared, then they took it back saying the checks were altered.
Why didn't the bank validate the checks before they wired the money? They later determined they were frauds.. couldn't they have determined that earlier or should they have had a process in place to delay the transfer until totally verified? Thats a large amount to send out of the country to Malaysia.. Just asking the questions.. I don't think I picked up on it when RTFA..
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Earn 15% commissions when you collect on our debt accounts. We send you the accounts and contact info. You do the collection calls. Payments are sent directly to you. You take 15% out and send the remainder to us and we send you more accounts. OK, that's the pitch. The sting should be obvious to slashdotters at this point. The lure would be a few small accounts that are easy to collect on and the victim actually gets the 15%. They get an email saying "wow, I'm impressed ... we'll be sending you some better accounts". You know what that means.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Asking the bank if the check cleared yields an answer which doesn't mean shit. If none of that means anything, what question must one ask the bank to require them to not reverse the answer? Is there a point where they can't do what ever the fuck they want to do?
I think I just cashed out all my cool points.
Scammed not just by the email but by the bank too! They should work together.
Dear Slashdotters, I am writing here in hopes that someone could help me with a problem. I assure you that you will be well paid for your efforts. I am a Martian Prince and have been exiled from my home planet. My planet and this one have been unwilling to allow me to transfer funds from zxabhins to US dollars. If you would be so kind as to help me transfer monies I would gladly give you 15% for your efforts... lol *Note for the sick society we live in: This is a JOKE. Get over it. I can see some jackass politician signing his latest DRM order and then getting on his computer and reading this and saying "get him".
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Author: William Pierce (as Andrew Macdonald), leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance
Published: 1978
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Turner_Diaries.asp?xpicked=5&item=22
you can find it posted in stormfront too, total drek
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Any e-mail that begins with "my friend" and you never heard of the person before ignore. Also if it if sounds too good it is too good.
He actually had about $800K in the bank from the scammers in checks that cleared before he sent $458k back to them, Then the fraud was discovered by the bank and they attached his assets... oops
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
Thanks, but our killer already finds that one.
But it's one of the reasons I read /. and other boards, they're a great source for samples.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Can someone explain to me why [sic] is used? There are no misspellings or words used incorrectly. Unless "[sic]" literally appeared in the original email? Either way, it's baffling.
The bank DOESN'T sit on checks. They send the imprint (300dpi scan) and the information transcribed into a fixed format record to the check clearing house (its a branch [usually Chicago] of the Federal reserve who make billions of dollars off of the "float" so they DON'T ever let it linger.)
Banks make YOU wait x business days because they can.
The check has usually cleared within a single business day.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Anyone in the accountancy/banking business would have a whole career of experience telling them that it is both common and ethical to get free money.
Seems like they'd obviously be the ones to fall for it. To the rest of us, the promise of free money sends up a huge red flag, but to them its just a part of normal everyday business.
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NAV doesn't see a problem with it
would the bank have still been able to come after him for it or would this have been the tip off that it hadn't "really" cleared ?
According to the California Court of Appeal opinion, neither the lawyer for the scam "victim" nor the lawyer for the bank identified the correct legal issue (apportionment of fault per the Uniform Commercial Code). And neither the lawyers nor the Court of Appeal picked up on the federal Check 21 law issue (the law that says banks are required to give credit against fake cashier's checks within one day after deposit).
The plaintiff's lawyer, because he didn't spot the UCC issue, almost certainly failed to discover or put on evidence that the bank was negligent in crediting the fake check.
Don't do business with Chino Commercial Bank. Yes, yes, I know. All banks are going to play that same game, but if I can just convince myself that by not doing business with certain companies that screw their customers (not all of them) I might just feel a little better about our economic system...
A lot of your are saying that the bank "cleared" the check and thus should be held liable.
I am not going to argue that point, but rather I want to state that the bank can be completely innocent here. In today's age, its possible to create a nearly perfect counterfeit of a check (especially for $500K). The bank can only put so many features on checks. "Clearing" the check does not mean going to the checks purported drawee and verifying that the funds are intended.
For instance, if the counterfeit check is from a walmart account where checks of that size routinely go out, it might take walmart a few days, or even weeks before it realizes that his has been erroneously debited. If the counterfeit was nearly perfect and passed all of the banks test, the bank can do nothing more until walmart notifies it that the check was not theirs. At this point, its probably too late.
It is time you people learned some Nigerian words ...
* Wahala - Unnecessary problems ... usage: My girlfriend is giving me wahala
* Wayo - Being tricked ... usage: Your girlfriend is playing wayo on you
* Mugu - A fool ... usage: You are a mugu
* Okpe - A bigger fool ... usage: You are an okpe
* Pafuka - To die ... The driver crashed the car and pafuka'd
----
Because I will do it for 14%.
FTA: "Peters deposited the $808,988.90 in checks received from the purported Malaysian at the Chino Commercial Bank. After the bank notified Peters that the checks had cleared, Peters wire transferred $468,000 to Hong Kong. Shortly thereafter, the checks were dishonored after the bank detected that they had been altered. Since Peters was personally liable for any overdrafts on the account which had only a few thousand dollars, the bank sought to attach property owned by Peters to collect on the overdraft. The trial court granted the bank’s motion to attach against Peters in the amount of $458,782.60...
Despite the obvious life lessons, the legal one is this – don’t transfer funds received unless and until you know that collection of the original deposit is final. This is particularly true for lawyers and others who receive funds in trust. (Chino Commercial Bank v. Peters, Dec. 13, 2010, Case No. E049170.)"
So my question is this -- HOW do you know that collection of the original deposit is final? (I've never even heard that phrase before.) Apparently being told "the check has cleared" doesn't do it?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
And that's why cheques should be phased out.
The bank should eat it. I mean, come on - at what point can you rely on the deposit clearing with finality?
Someone here said that this is how it has to be because how does the bank know that the Malaysian and the victim didn't conspire together? Well, how does the victim know that the Malaysian and the bank didn't conspire together?!?
After the bank notified Peters that the checks had cleared, Peters wire transferred $468,000 to Hong Kong.
Shortly thereafter, the checks were dishonored after the bank detected that they had been altered.
So what the hell does clearing a check mean? I always assumed that this means that the bank verified that the check was good and they received the funds from the other bank. How much later can a bank claim that a check is no good after it has cleared it?
There are a lot of con artists out there. They come in all shapes and sizes.
I was the victim of one that managed to get $150,000 out of me over the course of 2 years. They can be very smart and work their way into your trust as a friend. This one was introduced by someone I knew and didn't start asking for money for a few months, but when he did start talking about investments, I fell into his traps and signed some investment contracts that I wish I had not. The advice that I give out now, and wish someone had given me, is that as soon as you start feeling that something is not right, go talk to a lawyer!. Pride and embarrassment do nothing but help them to let you dig yourself in even deeper. I had been convinced that I was simply bad at business, and the agreements I had made needed to be stuck to. When I finally did talk to a lawyer, it took them about 10 minutes to explain that I was experiencing a classic fraud case. Because the con artist was so good at what he did, he covered his trail very well. I was told both by the lawyer and the police that it would probably cost me more than I lost to try to get it back.
Life is a game of constant learning. I now look at this as an expensive life lesson. Unfortunately I have come out of the experience much less trusting, especially of people talking about money.
Just please remember, that you are most likely not the only one they have hit. Go talk to a lawyer!
Cheers,
The scammer successfully made off with $460,000 that never existed. This is no "I need $200 from you to cover the transferal fees" scam. This is some crazy shit.
Either the person has a legitimate condition limiting mental or emotional function, and as such needs to be protected from themselves (i.e. Dementia, Psychosis, Alzheimer, etc.)
OR
Someone has just paid their idiot tax. Being, promoting, empowering, electing, and/or justifying stupid is expensive, and our society is continually finding new and more interesting ways of paying that tax every day.
Why did this guy even wire the money? If the checks cleared, he could have kept it all. Given it's all a fraud and there was no money in the first place. But it makes one wonder. If he falls for the scam, he could have just kept the whole thing and told is Malaysian friend that he needed a fee to wire the money out and stinging him along sorta like a reverse Nigerian Scam.
I think it's more that the banks need at least some mechanism to reduce the risk here. I don't know how it should work, but if they were held even partially liable, the banks would work it out pretty damn quickly.
The banks do have a system which allows this fraud to go ahead easily and they know it. They have made absolutely no effort to reduce the risk for their customers. Basically, the banks are negligently allowing this fraud to continue. If you are in a position to prevent a crime, and that crime continually occurs with you as a vital part, I believe that you are negligent and bear some responsibility.
So a scammer gives you a half million dollar cheque, the bank clears it, and you forward it?
Screw that! Goodbye Mr. Scammer. Goodbye Corrupt Bank with useless funds verification system.
I'd be off to a nice tropical country where my money would go a lot farther, and live out my days in relative comfort.
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NAV doesn't see a problem with it
Ya, Norton Anti Virus is a quality virus finding program. Sort of like Mcafee is a quality virus finding program.
What I mean is, if you run those, virus will find your computers to be a good place to breed.
Be seeing you...
He reaped what he sewed. He's a moron, and I'm happy he lost out. Deserves it. Phuck him, and every dumbass like him.
With all this hunting-for-al-qaida's-money going on, why is it not simply a question of going to the HongKong account and find out who witdrew the money? Surely the bank there can't say "Oh, we have no idea, we hand out half a million dollars cash to anyone without verification of their identity?" I mean, bank secrecy is dead no? ...and if the bank doesn't want to play ball, how come the whole finanial community doen't stomp it 6 foor under ground for aiding and abetting financial crimes?? ...or is it only a serious crime when it hits rich people or goverments and f*ck the little guy?
The only thing that indicates is your ignorance and/or stupidity. I have no means to find out whether Norton detects a virus. I wouldn't bet on it.
The only thing Norton does efficiently is slow down your system. So if you would like to run old (mid 1990's) badly written games that speed up with the processor, you should try it. Otherwise: use MSSE or a free scanner (AntiVir was my drug of choice until MSSE came). They have far less overhead and far better detection chances. With antivirus software you get the reverse of what you pay for: the payed versions are useless while the free versions have some diamonds in them.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Is it really spyware/malformed PDF?
I was bored so I looked at it, but MS Sec Essentials didn't flag it.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Why did he transfer $468k? The $809k-15% is $687. Was he trying to stiff the Malaysian, or did only part of the check sum posted on his account (which should have alerted him)?
PS. I want a point for using checksum in non computer post ;)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Got to love the humor of all those scam spam. "The Nigerian government owes you $11M for your contact service" Funny can't seem to remember that job? How stupid of me to forget a 11 million dollar job....
Banks have a vested interested in seeing activity like this; transactions keep money flowing, branches get bonuses / awards based on volume (the check he wrote counts), bank fees. They also know that cleared doesn't mean cleared all the way I think there is a time limit on clearing the checks that each bank has but keep in mind this transaction likely went through 3-4 banks before hitting the Chino Commercial bank which means it could be (and should have been) stopped anywhere along that route. This guy's actions should have triggered fraud warnings at his bank, for several reasons 1) depositing a large sum from a foreign bank 2) a deposit outside his standard profile (I would assume he isn't depositing a large number of high dollar amount checks or a large number of checks in 1 transactions) 3) Writing a check which is outside his standard profile (again I'm assuming he doesn't write to many high value checks). If he'd used a credit card he would have received this level of service. As small business owner I do a great deal of banking. I have 15 banks accounts I deal with (including personal) at 3 banks. I know my bankers and they know to notify me of any out of the ordinary activity on any of my accounts. Every customer should get to know their bankers so it's a personal connection not $ in and $ out.
The Chino Commercial Bank washed it's hands as it has nothing to do with the scam (if you belive that you are a banker).
They can't even look after people, let alone money. It's not supprising that they won't take any responsibility.
It's not nice thinking that people can potentially scam this much money without passports, birth certificates and other POD's being required. Also for a 5 min chat of financial advice for pepople transfereing large amouts after depositing cheques. Surely this should have triggered some automatic alarm bells in their systems? I forgot, they don't give a sh@t.
answer: anaesthesiologists
as with your accountants, these are the guys who have the most education about psychopharmacology and the biochemistry of addition
which tells us something about human nature: education is really not that much of a protection against base human weaknesses
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You'd think that after all these years of the well known Nigerian scams, The Ghana scams and every other scam coming out of Africa, that people would wise up and realize that they're nothing but SCAMS!!! I get e-mails like that on occasion and everyone of them gets Trashed, without even being read! There's no such thing as Free money, folks, so wake up and smell the coffee!!
In other news Charles Peters will be prosecuted for funding terrorist activities on malasya
Where is the "moron" moderation when you need it?
In Greece banks won't cash foreign checks before actually clearing them. I once had to cash-in a US check and it took around 20 days for the money to show up in my bank account. Semi-clearing the cash earlier, only to take em back later on, while allowing a half-a-million wire transfer, sounds like a scam to me. No excuses for that guy though.
There's no virus; the vulnerability that would likely be exploited for such a virus has been fixed for the most part anyway. The file is simply a book by Andrew Macdonald, called the "Turner Diaries" -- extremist right-wing propaganda about the white supremacist and militia movements taking over the US and leading to nuclear war within the US, destroying much of it. The book is set up by finding the diaries of a leader named Earl Turner 100 years after the war.
Please tell me you're kidding... For your own safety, shut down Windows and use a secure operating system.
you had me at #!
n/t
you had me at #!
... the bank and the scam is to deposit the cheque in a daily interest savings account, wait for it to clear then hold off the scammer for six weeks or so to make sure it really clears (telling him "I'm still waiting for it to clear").
Then if the cheque does ultimately bounce, you still have the money to be rescinded, and if you're lucky you get the interest. The scammer gets nothing if the cheque doesn't fully clear (of course, then he's not a scammer, is he?).
I recall a story several years ago when one of the biggest group of people suckered by these scams were accountants and people in similar financial professions
There's an old saying, "you can't con an honest man". Of course you can con an honest man; but it's harder. If somebody is greedy and prone to cheat, they're a lot easier to con. A lot of cons rely on the victim believing that they're part of something criminal. Once they step over that line, they feel like they have to keep going, and they won't go to the police because they're "in on it".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This reminds me of the Madoff clients who didn't make money ("victims"), who are now going after Madoff clients who did make money ("co-conspirators") in order to get back money -- and perhaps "profits", too. Greed is still evidently good, for those who can afford the lawyers... or at least for the lawyers.
I'd reserve the word "victim" for someone who didn't have good reason to believe that they were money laundering -- or worse.
Partly rhetoric. I guess they didn't think of it. But if they'd done that, no-ones out of pocket.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
I worked at a small bank as a teller for 5 years during high school / college. The article isn't very detailed, but this is my take: It doesn't take very long for checks to "clear" anymore. In the past, when paper checks were floating around, it could take a week, sometimes longer, for a check to clear. Nowadays, everything is done electronically.
As a teller, if I took a large deposit that was out of the ordinary, I would call the bank that the check was drawn on and confirm the funds were available. In many cases, this was not possible. Many of the large banks (Wells Fargo, US Bank, etc.) will not confirm funds, as it is against their privacy policy. If I could not confirm the funds were available, I would put a hold on the check. It's VERY odd to me that the bank didn't cover its ass by putting a hold on the check.
As previously mentioned, check "clearing" doesn't take long anymore. If a check comes back (NSF, etc.) from the institution the instrument was written on, it usually comes back in about 48 hours. The bank that the instrument is written on can return the item for a number of things. I'm willing to bet that the checks actually "cleared," as in they were deposited, were sent to the paying institution, were NOT rejected. The scamster probably got his overdraft notice (since the checks weren't good anyways) and he sat on it for a couple of days. The scamster then went to the bank and said, "OH MY GOSH, THESE CHECKS WERE ALTERED, I NEED TO PUT A STOP PAYMENT ON THEM, NOW!!!!" While in the mean time, the customer wired money to an international bank.
As a teller, I saw a lot of this crap, but I also knew my customers. If I saw something that wasn't normal, I'd ask them about it and make some phone calls. I caught quite a few of the "secret shopper" scams where the customer would get a $5000 check in the mail for being a "secret shopper" even though they hadn't participated, and were encouraged to deposit it and send some of the money back. The checks were $5000 to prevent a hold on them from Reg. CC.
tl;dr: Ultimately, it wasn't the bank's fault. Although; It's odd that they didn't put a hold on the funds (to protect both the bank and the customer alike). In the end, it was probably just a suave scamster that knows his way around the financial laws in the US.
Interesting, Interesting...
Did the bank really say the funds were cleared? Or did they say the funds were available? Cleared should mean cleared, and if the bank used the term cleared I'd appeal to a higher court.
However, as a businessman in Riverside, I know that my bank will make all my deposits available on the day after the deposit but that if they get returned later by the sending bank, I'm responsible. In fact, I keep two bank accounts, one to receive deposits, and one, in a different bank (google right of offset to learn why), to disburse funds. That way, even though I do eventually have to make good on any deposits reversed as unpaid, I still don't lose money from my day-to-day cash-flow I need to run my business.
Another thing I know as a businessman in Riverside: Is Chino Bank in Chino? If so, it's in San Bernardino County, not Riverside County. Was this case heard in the wrong court?