Victim of a $5,000 scam. Don't know what to do. :'(?

Question

I sign up to a lot of stuff online, including paid surveys, mystery shopping and etc, and all the ones i've done so far have been legit.

But this is what happened:

1- Received letter in the mail with a $5,000 check

2- The letter said i had to do mystery shopping on JC Penney, Macy's or Home Depot and I had to spend $100 while evaluating the store.

3- I had to go to a MoneyGram location and transfer $4,440 to Canada while evaluating the transaction

4- Fax everything with the receipts

5- Keep $300 for myself and that they would send me another assignment whithin a week.

So I did all that, and what happend was: The Check bounced, i tried reaching them with the number they gave me, and no one answers. I'm DESPERATE, they locked my bank account, so I have no money....please help

Answer 1

Oh gosh, so sorry. You can report it to the police, but since the scamming company is in Canada, they have no jurisdiction.  I'm sorry you didn't see this one coming.  That's certainly an expensive lesson to learn.  I hope it all come out well in the end for you.  You may try to get the bank to request the wire back due to fraud and see what they say.  Don't talk to a teller, talk to the manager of the local bank branch.

Answer 2

I am sorry.. it has to go through your banks fraud department. If you have the money to cover the loss, you can request your bank to release your funds and cancel your account pending investigation...

I recommend never cashing anything into your personal account. Go directly to the bank that the check was written from and cash it there, they may charge you a fee but it wont effect your account.

Answer 3

Sorry but you are out of luck. Report it to the police but do not hold out any hope of ever seeing your money again.

Answer 4

First thing you need to do is explain to your bank exactly what happened.  What they can do from there is unfreeze your account and monitor it.  They can track who is trying to access it.  Also you need to contact your local police department and ask them who to contact in this situation and I would also look into getting a lawyer and suing.

Best of luck