[Hopey]

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Most of these scams originate in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has done very little to stop these scams, partly because it is a huge "industry" for the country, and partly because those in power are either directly or indirectly involved in the scams.

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What scam are you talking about? The only way you can get hurt by this is if you send money"BEFORE" making sure their check has cleared your bank, which I DID NOT DO.

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Sigh. Here is your original post:

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Several days later I go and get my mail and sure enough there is a check from some bank for 6,000.00, so I rush down to my bank(BofA) and deposit it. I am told it will take a few days for the check to clear.Ok. 5-6 days later I don't remember I either went to the bank or they called me, I forget which, and said the check had cleared. Fvck I couldn't believe it so I went over to the bank checked that the funds had been credited to my acct. They were there! So I started action for a 4,500.00 money order to send to the address I was given, and during this process one of the banks employees mentioned this"Nigerian" counterfeit check scam.

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So you had actually STARTED the procedure to send $4500 back to the address you were given. The only reason you didn't complete the procedure was because of the bank teller. *You* fell for the scam, but luckily for you the bank teller saved your ass before it was too late.

Lots of people fall for this scam. The fact that you didn't know that the bank can still recover the funds after the cheque has cleared does not make you stupid. I would suspect that most people don't know this.

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The reason I am skeptical about it being some Nigerian thing is because who(some guy in Nigeria?) is reading for sale ads of the LVRJournal,and trying to scam a guy selling a go-kart. Come on. I guess you can believe that if you want.

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You're right, this probably has nothing to do with Nigerians. The Nigerians are more into e-commerce these days. The guy scamming you was obviously someone fairly local. It's still the same principle as the Nigerian scam, though. The only difference is that the local guy stands a slightly better chance (though still very small) of getting caught.