FAKE CHECK SCAM
Recently persons posting items for sale on EBay and Craig’s List have reported receiving checks issued by “Boston University” in payment for those items. The checks, written for amounts greatly exceeding the asking prices of the posted items (for example, $5,000 for a $400 item) , claimed to be issued by the “Trustees of Boston University”, “Trustees of BU” and “Boston University Student Accounting Services”.
The checks were usually accompanied by printed notices instructing the recipients to send email notifications to a “secure payment department’s email address” to verify the check numbers and to receive further instructions about the checks before cashing or depositing them.
Recipients sending the email notifications were instructed to deposit the checks and then wire a large portion of the proceeds, usually to a Western Union account, only to find out later that the checks were fakes.
If you have posted an item (or items) for sale on-line and have received a check (or checks) issued by the “Trustees of Boston University”, “Trustees of BU” or “Boston University Student Accounting Services” (with or without a printed notice), in payment, please contact Detective Billie Kanavich at (617) 353-3436 or bkanavic@bu.edu before cashing or depositing the check(s).