Cheque Scams

Lately I have been hooked onto Radio Talk Shows, and I heard some very interesting piece of news today.

There was this guy somewhere in Florida, who put up his couch for sale on craigslist for $200. Enquires started flowing in, and he got this email from some lady who said wanted the couch and would pay for the couch and the shipping charges for sending it to her. He did get a cheque from her by UPS overnight, a week later for $4500. On enquiry he was told that it was a mistake by the secretary, and he could cash the cheque and send the remaining money with the shipment. To cut a long story short, it is a scam, wherin the person sends stolen cheques to you and wants you to send them the money after you deposit the cheque and after a few days when the bank tries to clear it, you get caught for identity theft and they get the cashed amount.

More such instances were people dating online, and having the other person (after they become comfortable) send them cheques to cash, and after that it works the same way.

A dealer on ebay, had a customer send him a cheque for $7000 for buying some PS/2’s and requested the remaining money (around $2000) to be sent back along with the PS/2’s. He suspected something fishy, and went to his bank, and they called the toll – free number at the back of the cheque (it was a Chase Bank cheque) to verify the authenticity which was confirmed. A gut feeling with the dealer made him wait for a few more days before he sent the money and he later got a call from his bank saying the cheque was fraud and that the number at the back of the cheque was made up too and it went to the scammer who verified the authenticity of the cheque.

A bank confirmed that on an average they get cheques like this once in 10 days.
Be careful while dealing and doing any such business online, most of the cases you will find the other person communicating only by email.

Mehngaa Mumbai

According to a study conducted by International Human Resource organisation ECA International, Mumbai has been listed as the 7th most expensive city to live in.
The rising property prices in India in general and Mumbai in particular, are cited to be the primary reason for this.
Hong King leads the list, followed by Tokyo, New York, Moscow, Seoul and London.
High Rentals in these cities cause the living costs to go up. Mumbai and Shanghai suffer from the lack of well equipped and modern facilities, hence inflating the price for facilities which do.
Shanghai, Caracas (Venezuela) and Paris fill up the remaining 3 slots in the list

Google Humor

I was planning a few trips for this summer, and while taking directions, a typo gave me driving directions from Europe to the United States. I could'nt believe what I saw, but it did give me a hearty laugh

Sued Seoul’ites

One of the more bizarre piece of news I have heard.
Jin Nam Chung and Ki Chung, (like most other South Koreans in US), have a dry cleaning business, but one irate customer has made their ‘American Dream’ into a Nightmare.
They are being sued by one of their customers, who is a District of Columbia administrative judge over a missing pant for $65 Million.
Wow, that must be a really expensive pant for a judge to wear.
Chung’s would be pretty disappointed and kicking themselves for not paying the $1000 earlier asked for.
You can read the full story here.
I really think it unfair for the Chung’s. Comment your take on this...