Lynn police urge vigilance against ID theft

LYNN-Police are once again urging people to stay vigilant to protect against check fraud.The bottom line: you should never have to send money in order to receive it.Police urge against cashing checks sent to you from foreign countries or other parts of the United States because checks from far-away locations seem to be involved in these scams quite frequently.The latest example defrauded a 54-year-old Lynn woman out of $12,000.The victim got an e-mail message in January from Marvic Textiles and Fabrics of Switzerland offering her a job in which she could work at home on the computer.Someone from the company told her that he found her resume online. The victim thought the offer was legitimate because she posted her resume on several job-search websites, such as Monster.com and CareerBuilders.com.After another few e-mails were sent back and forth, the victim was told she would receive a package containing a check made out to her for $3,950. When she received the check, she was supposed to deposit it into her bank account or take it to a check cashing service.Once the check was deposited she was supposed to wait for instructions that would be mailed to her the following day.She got the instructions and was told to mail some people in South Africa a specified amount of money.In a two-week span, the victim received and later cashed five cashier checks for $3,950 each.The victim was then contacted by her credit union, informing her that her account was frozen. The credit union said she was responsible for the three checks that had cleared totaling $11,850. The victim feared that another check had yet to clear and she would be responsible for that check as well.Police say if you get these suspicious offers in your postal mail or e-mail, you should ignore them. Many of these criminals operate from overseas making it nearly impossible for them to be brought to justice.If you think you have been scammed, you should still call local police to try to have the situation rectified with your bank.