A new scam is after QCA bank accounts, offering a job and cash up front.
It happened to a local woman, Jeanette Carden. After applying for jobs on 'Careerbuilder,' Carden got an email, offering a job with benefits.
"So I'm thinking great, super, awesome it'll pay for school," Carden says
The job was for a legitimate company that evaluates employees. She was sent a check for $1,650 to cash, keeping $150 dollars as payment, then she was supposed to wire the rest using a Western Union, and evaluate the customer service she got there.
"I called the bank and they were like no that is not valid," Carden says.
Had she cashed it, she was told her assets could've been frozen, and the money she wired overseas taken out of her own account.
The bank listed on the check, Nashville Post Office Credit Union, says Carden is one of countless all over the country who've gotten a similar offer.
Local banks say they come across a check scam almost once a week. At the Community Credit Union, they've caught up to $25,000 worth of fake checks this year.
"That's probably the most popular scam we run across here," Public Relations Officer Melissa Brown says, "Checks are easy to manipulate, you can manipulate the number at the bottom, you can make copies of them."
Tellers are trained to spot fakes; red flags can be checks that aren't local, have the wrong ink, or were obtained through suspicious circumstances.
"When people bring in checks, we ask questions," Brown says, "If they don't normally bring in checks for large amounts of money we will ask questions."
Bankers say if the fake goes through, they will work with victims as best they can, but once the money is sent out, there's little they can do.
"It would be out of our hands at that point," Brown says.
Local police tell us once the money is overseas, it's nearly impossible to get it back and the victim is almost always held responsible.
"You never think it's going to happen to you until it does," Carden says, "That means it can happen to anybody."
