I have a friend who recently got a job in the mortgage industry. As I understand it the company “helped” people to avoid foreclosure. In spite of the tough job market, he quit the job a short time later. In talking to him I found out it was due to blatant dishonesty including signature forgery. These guys make money by giving people a “second chance” when they near foreclosure. The reality is, they make people renters in their own home and usually end up taking the house anyway.

Today a guy came in to the bank and told me he thought he’d been the victim of fraud. I asked him what happened. He said he thought he’d been hired by a company that wanted him to open a new arm of their business in the area. To get things started they’d make a $500 deposit into his account, then he would need to take $400 and send a MoneyGram to someone. The additional $100 was his to keep as his new hire bonus, or whatever. He did as told, then suddenly noticed that the $500 had been pulled back out of his account, after he’d already sent the $400 MoneyGram. I immediately told him he was the victim of a scam. [READ MORE]

I often get emails from friends and family that say things like “Microsoft is going to give you $100 if you forward this to 10 people.” Or claim that congress is about to limit free speech on the radio, or any number of anythings, or the sickest are the ones that tell you this horrible story and that you’ll help a donation in their behalf if you forward it.

If any of these sound even remotely familiar, and you’ve forwarded them on, you’ve probably been a victim of “forward fraud.”  …Okay, okay, I just made that up right now… there’s no real name for it that I know of, but the simple fact is, almost any email that asks you to forward it, is not worth obeying, is usually not true, and only annoys people who see it for what it is. [READ MORE]