1.5 Million Bank Check

THE INCREDIBLE $1.5 MILLION BANK CHECK

Some years ago, one of my international clients send me an email and said that he had received a bank check or, in other words, a cashier’s check in the amount of approximately $1.5 million. The funds were to be used for the export of goods. The cashier's check came from one of the world’s largest international banks but the branch was located in Indonesia. My client was concerned about the check’s legitimacy. (I won’t tell you where my client is located, but he is located in a country known for scammers.) I wrote back and said that for a fee as an attorney, I would verify the checks authenticity. Just send me the check and I will do the research and contact the bank to determine if it was valid. My client felt that since I was an attorney I would have much better luck dealing with the bank upon which the check had been drawn.

About a week later, I received a DHL courier package containing the check. Boy did that check look good. I immediately called the bank’s international fraud division Chicago office to verify the check. Someone from the fraud division answered the phone and I explained my situation. The person at the other end of the line chuckled and said, “No, there’s no way this check is any good. The bank gets between two and three calls a day about such checks. Tthe check is absolutely counterfeit. I hope no one advanced any money based on the presentation of the check.”

The question is, how is this accomplished? Well, we all know the power of inkjet printers. Some people have actually tried to produce counterfeit US currency using such printers. It is interesting to note that some inkjet printers contain a mechanism for recognizing currency and will not properly make a copy of or print that currency. However when it comes to a bank check, there is no protection. It may have also been possible that blank checks had somehow been stolen from the bank in Indonesia and then fed through a printer to make it appear like the check was valid. This just goes to show that there are no lengths to which a scammer will go to try to take your money.

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