Hi. This is my first post here on Trap17. And I came here becuase of a tragic situation: I am a hapless victim of a fraud crime.

On April 19, two strangers, Afro-American women, approached me and told me to do a favor. They will pay me $100 if I cash their checks. I accepted their offer. Just this morning I found out that the checks they gave me to cash were frauds and I owe the bank $4,000. I don't have have a single cent to pay them back. And now I have nothing in both my checking and savings accounts, and my parents don't even have enough money to pay for the mortgage to our house.

I report this to the police the next week. It turns out that the scam artists where professionals and were stalking mental health clients around the city. I have a friend who can help me with this situation. And I hope they catch these scammers soon.

Unfortunately, I also blame myself for falling into their trap. I feel awful. I am resolving this situation. But I may never use credit card purchases on the Internet again. I will set up a joint account in a new bank with my sister on Monday. And I will not have access to a debit card anymore and I have to make online orders via money orders. Currently, I downgraded by web server account on Tripod to a free account, but ads are messing up my website. That's why I decided to go to the trap17 site to start a new site. I hope I can start all over with this, and I hope I can renew on my project I'm working on.

I hope I can get some support. And I hope I get to know you guys here.

This post has been edited by Dangerman_1973: Apr 30 2007, 05:58 AM

Man that has to suck, of course the question I have to ask is why didn't it click in that something was fishy about the situation, in which two complete strangers that you don't know asked you to do this? Also I would talk to someone who deals with credit cards and your credit score, because this could affect your credit score very badly especially if the bank is asking you for money. So I would get on that right away because this could take some time to repair and what not and it would be good to start with that as well. Also I don't know to many sites that accept money orders anymore, due to the security that goes with online purchases these days.

Yeah you will find a good start with trap17 hosting, its about 10 times better then paid hosting (somewhat) 1000X more better that web hosts like tripod and geocities, so you shouldn't have a problem getting your website back up here.

That's horrible. But surely there is some way you can get out of this...I think you should goto the police right away. Then, you could go to those places that offer free legal advice, and see what your options are. I'm not familiar with bank systems, but since the checks didn't have you're name on them, or related to you in any way, then you should not be held responsible. This is system is corrupt.
You will enjoy trap17, it truly is a great place. Well, I hope you can get this sorted out right away.

Thanks. I really appreciate your support. I make a HUGE mistake and I hope I'll never do this again.

I dont get it, how can you end up like that. Its not like it was your checks. Kind of sounds like anti checks, instead of recieving money the money goes to the person who gives you the check.

What was the point of identifying them as African American? What purpose did that serve?

And explain this to me, what do you mean by you cashing their checks? I don't see how you cashing their checks would affect your financial situation in any way.

Is it wrong for me to laugh?

Of course it's wrong of you to laugh. This is America! It's wrong of you to do anything that might offend someone... Sit down and take another toke while I attempt to unravel this mystery for you...

He's identified the two women by their pigment content and various facial features for a couple reasons: First, if you are asked by two black women with strong Ethiopian accents to hand them $4000 for their check in the amount of $4100, you should run away fast, or knock them to the ground immediately and make a citizen's arrest. A third option I bet he's considered since this all happened, is take their check, go into the bank, call the police and have them meet him there, and let them make the arrest. Obviously, white European-American women would never commit such a blatant felonious crime against another cracker, so it's important to identify these two scam artists as black. Furthermore, since America continues to be obsessed with pigment and other superficial features, there's really no other way to identify them is there? And really, who's the real "racists" here? I mean, these two hooligans went after a white male for their scam, not another brother! He's got every right to identify them by their skin color! It's not his fault they're bringing their entire sub-culture down with their nefarious deeds...

Hey guys, I'd like to thank you all for supporting me during my crisis. I appreciate my comments on this.

Just yesterday, as a result of the scam, I found out that my Social Security Service pension for this month have been wiped out. My mom brought me to the nearest Social Security office to resolve this situation. Also my sister is going to help me open an account at a different bank within the next few weeks. And my co-worker knows that I'm the latest victim of an ongoing scam crime spree. Those scammers who conned me were stalking various mental health patients with debit card accounts. I also sign on to a scam victims forum and I've been instructed to send an E-mail to the FDIC's website about my situation.

Also today, I've got the police incident report of the crime and my mom is keeping it for future reference. I hope the police will catch those scammers. So they will have to pay back everything they stole from me and everything they stole from their previous victims.

And I hope I can get through this. I hope I've learn my lesson:

- I will never accept money to strangers
- I will never go into strangers' cars
- I will never get scammed again, (I hope)

And again, thanks for all your support. I needed that.