Go slow

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Aug 15, 2006

Scam artists are successful because almost all of us have a rich fantasy life in which we open a letter to learn that we are the sole surviving heirs of a castle in England and all we have to do is move in.

Or maybe your fantasy is a letter that a distant relative you never knew has left you a huge amount of money in a will.

But in the real world, those things happen so rarely it doesn't pay to plan your life around waiting for that good fortune.

If you receive a check from a source you aren't familiar with, get professional advice from your bank or the Better Business Bureau before making your plans on how you will spend the money.

A common scam, according to Linda Woodland, senior vice president at Commerce Bank & Trust, is a "lottery scam." You receive a letter from outside the country, perhaps Canada , saying you have won $15 million in the Canadian lottery. They say they are sending a check for $2,895 and want you to send back $2,300 to prepay taxes, then they will send the rest. The $2,895 checks turns out to be a counterfeit and you are out $2,300.

Bank tellers are trained to watch for those suspicious checks and to ask a few questions of the depositor.

"Do you remember entering the Canadian lottery?" they might ask. Tellers will urge the bank customer to get more information about the lottery before depositing the check, which typically turns out to be worthless.

One that just about everyone with an e-mail account has seen is called the Nigerian bank scam. You get an e-mail allegedly from someone in some far-off place such as Nigeria who claims he has millions of dollars he needs to get out of the country. He asks for your bank account to deposit the money and says you can keep a portion of the amount. Another twist on this is you inherited the money and they just need your bank account.

"Don't respond, they are going to wipe out your account," Woodland said.

These practices, and others, are becoming so common that Commerce Bank & Trust and The Topeka Capital-Journal have teamed up to launch an educational campaign to stop financial fraud in Topeka.

Just because a piece of advice has become a cliche doesn't mean it isn't true. So, remember, if the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Get some advice from some financially savvy person at your bank before getting your hopes up.