Delano Herald Journal

Serving the communities of Delano, Loretto, Montrose, MN, and the surrounding area

Former local man featured on CBS as victim of Nigerian scam



They were only trying to sell a car, but now Jeff and Shawn
Mosch are international scam victims.

The Mosches appeared on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rathers
Nov. 1 to tell their story.

Jeff is a former Waverly resident and graduated from Howard
Lake-Waverly in 1988. The family lives in Bloomington.

A cashier’s check they received from Nigeria for the purchase
of their car was counterfeit, and now the Mosches are being held responsible
for the money.

They feel their bank, Twin Cities Federal (TCF), did not
do its job in protecting them. After the scam was found out, the Mosches’
bank told them that if they were so concerned about the check, they should
have personally called the other bank to verify, Shawn said. “I thought
that’s what banks did.”

They have since gotten calls from other scam victims in
other states, Shawn said.

The Mosches compared notes with others who had striking
similarities.

They discovered that the mailing addresses from where the
cashier’s check came from were almost identical, only the house numbers
were different, she said.

The Mosches and the caller then researched the tracking
number on the Fed Ex package the check came in. They found that the number
led to the same town in Great Britain. Also, the addresses of were to wire
the money were similar, she said.

Another call they received was from a man whose parents
had seen the TV program. The man was getting ready to wire money the next
day, and when he checked his tracking number, it also goes to Great Britain,
she said.

“We think it’s the same ring of people,” Shawn
said.

The Mosches have formed an Internet support group for victims
of scams. The site is groups.yahoo.com/group/scamsupportgroup.

“Since it’s happened to so many of us, maybe we can
find a way to join together to stop it,” Shawn said.

Shawn talked with a Secret Service agent, and asked if
he thought the money was ending up in terrorists hands. He couldn’t confirm
it, but he didn’t dismiss it either, she said.

“Something has to be done,” she said. “For
all we know, we just helped fund terrorists.”

The Mosches were selling Jeff’s 1961 Buick and had placed
an ad on the Internet with an asking price of $1,600. Adebisi Julius of
Lagos, Nigeria contacted them, stating that he was a car dealer and was
interested in buying the car, Shawn said.

A friend in America owed him money, so Julius wanted the
friend to send the Mosches a cashier’s check directly. The Mosches would
then deduct the price of the car from $8,800, which is what Julius’ friend
owed, Shawn said.

The Mosches were to send the remaining balance via Western
Union so that Julius could arrange transportation for the vehicle once the
check cleared, she said.

The friend’s name was Victor Tom of Warrington, Pa.

The Mosches didn’t really expect a check, or that if they
did receive one, they figured it would not clear when they brought it to
the bank and that would be the end of it, Shawn said.

They received a cashier’s check from Tom Oct. 7. in the
amount of $8,800, Shawn said. The check had a Bank of America logo on it.

Shawn deposited the check into their savings account at
TCF in Bloomington Oct. 8.

When she was at the bank, Shawn asked the cashier how long
it would take until the check cleared. The reply was “24 hours,”
Shawn said.

Shawn wanted to make certain the cashier understood her
question. She rephrased the question, asking “I need to know not just
when the funds would show up in our account, but when we can be sure that
it is a good check, that it has cleared, and that it is real money that
we can touch or use. I don’t want to get a charge or have this come back
and bite us in the butt.”

“Tomorrow afternoon. No problems,” the teller
replied.

The Mosches were later able to confirm from a different
TCF employee that the wait is 24 hours.

The Mosches decided to wait an extra day just to be sure
it was a good check, before returning to the bank to withdraw $7,200, Shawn
said

The money was wired Oct. 10 and picked up Oct. 11, she
said.

Five days later on Oct. 16, TCF contacted the Mosches to
inform them the check was counterfeit and that the back was deducting $8,800
from their savings account, Shawn said.

They are now responsible for paying back what their savings
didn’t cover, $5,000.

Shawn has been applying for a part-time job so they can
pay TCF back, she said.

“Their clerk told me that it would clear after 24
hours. If I had known that it might come back at me, I would have waited
longer,” she said. “Why are we responsible because their employee
gave me incorrect information?”

The Mosches have since contacted the police, a lawyer,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the attorney general.

They were also on the radio station 93X Wednesday morning
to warn others.

The Mosches called Warrington police to ask about Tom.
They were told that the address was a complete fake, she said.

Shawn also notified the owner of the web site so he could
warn other sellers. One of the victims she talked to also had a vehicle
for sale on the same web site, she said.

“I know the whole deal sounded weird from the get
go, but we said if the check clears, then what the heck, who cares how this
guy wants to pay for it,” Shawn said. “And that is why I made
sure I said that I needed to know when the check would be cleared and we
would be sure that the check was good.”

“Isn’t that their job, to inform their customers and
to help ensure our financial safety?” she asked.

The TCF bank manager told Shawn “too bad” and
that if she was worried about it clearing, she should have been more careful,
Shawn said.

She also told Shawn that she should have called the Bank
of America that the check was issued from to verify the account number and
that money was in the account, Shawn said.

“I guess I thought that is what a bank is supposed
to do during the time they tell you that you have to wait,” she said.

TCF won’t give the check to authorities to aid investigation
until the Mosches have paid the $5,000, Shawn said.

“If they would have said that we needed to wait 10
days, we would have,” she said.

As for the car, it’s still for sale, she said.

One response to “Former local man featured on CBS as victim of Nigerian scam”

  1. linetogel says:

    Amazing, nice one

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