send money to make money, illegal? URGENT?
I
replied to ad on Gumtree (free ad posting site in Australia), basically
they were looking for Couriers for part time job (about 1-2 hrs a day)
and so i accepted. After giving away my personal details as well as my
bank details to them, I was given my very first job today
As a courier I received about $5k USD into my bank account, and asked me
to withdraw that amount of money and send each $2500 USD to two people
from Russia via Western Union. They said in the email "I sold out 4
laptops at the auction and I need your help to pay off to my customer
from Russia" and then they go If WU operator ask me about the reason of
my transfer say "for personal purposes only and not any kind of business
or illegal activity"
I cleared about $200 USD (which is more than average day worth of job)
for my part of the job. That amount of money for such a simple job
(sending money to 2 clients overseas) something tells me they upto no
good.. His number is on private when calls me
my question is if somthing does go wrong will I be sent to jail even
thou I saved all our interactions on email as evidence?
Law & Ethics - 5 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
your kinda dumb arent you?
2 :
First
of all you sound like you fell for a scam, and really don't understand
how the internet works. Bottom line is it sounds like you are involved
in a money laundering business, and yes that is illegal. My
recommendation is to stop doing what you are doing and go ahead and give
the local law enforecement a call....maybe they can help you out!
NO one would ask you to transfer that much money, even as a new client
in a real/legal business.
3 :
Basically what just happened
is you've had your identity stolen. 99.99...% of the time, you're
dealing with a very real looking, fake check. Before you try doing
something like this, did you think to make sure the place of origin
existed? Time to go and have things changed...
Was there a sequential address? (1234 Example Street, ______vill IL)
4 :
It's
a scam and you are the fall guy.
The check that was deposited to your account is likely forged. And when
that is discovered, you will be on the hook for the forgery and the
money. If you have not yet sent the money out, don't. Tell your
"employer" you are waiting for the bank to verify the check or deposit.
That should make him unhappy.
The plan of the "employer" is to get you to send his cohorts money
before it's discovered that the deposit is fake.
Go to your bank and tell them what happened. Now. Do not wait. Ask them
to close that account immediately. Expect them to call in the police.
That's what you want to happen, even if it will be initially not
pleasant. Any of your own money in your account may end up gone. If
you do not go to the authorities immediately yourself, you will probably
be looking at criminal charges and possibly jail or prison. Yes, it's
that serious.
You are expected to know that something like this is a cover for some
sort of illegal activities. None of the emails you saved will be of
much use to you, since such things are easily counterfeited also. You do
not have a real name or number of any person. So you will be the one on
the hook.
You've given out your personal information and bank information to
crooks. Expect this to be a big problem for you.
If something seems too good to be true, it is.
5 :
As the
others have said, this is illegal.
However, what they are doing is rather different, I would suggest, to
what the previous answers have said.
There are two possible cons going on here:-
1 - They have sold some items on ebay or similar have taken the money
and will not send the buyer any goods. The buyer has paid his money
into YOUR bank account. Guess who he will be coming after to recover
his money.
2 - Much more worrying from your point of view. These people have got
hold of someone's internet banking details and have stolen this money
from them and transferred it into your account. You then very kindly
send it off to some unidentifiable person in another country. In this
case, as soon as the person realises that he has had his money stolen
the police will be alerted and it will be a simple case of tracking the
payment to YOUR account and then very shortly after that the police will
be knocking on YOUR door asking YOU lots of questions.
