Recently, the wife of my colleague Curt Brown received a letter from “Direct Processing Ltd” at their St. Paul home. The letter came with a realistic check, and an enticing letter, offering a $75,000 windfall.

“Your name was selected through a random ballot system through the use of your Credit/Debit card at participating outlets,” it said.

Depending on whether you go by the address on the letter or the one on the accompanying check, Direct Processing Ltd. is located in an office building on Bay Street in Toronto or at Chicago’s 233 South Wacker Drive, otherwise known as the mighty Sears Tower. I couldn’t find listings for either.

“We have enclosed a certified check in the amount of $4,875 (FOUR THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS) which has been deducted from your winnings,” says the letter, from Christine Russo (Claims Department Manager). It’s supposedly drawn on an account with First Bank & Trust, a little town in east central Illinois.

But don’t cash that check, the letter instructs, until you dial the 800 number and talk to “claims agent Paul Moore.”

I couldn’t reach Moore on Friday, but I did talk to Terry Howard, president and CEO of First Bank & Trust in Paris, Illinois.

“That check’s bogus,” Howard said. “It does have our routing and transit number,” but other numbers on the check don’t add up. He said it’s the first he’d heard of this particular scam. “Certified,” then, is a better description of someone who falls for this scam than the check itself.

“When the tooth fairy shows up with his pink tutu and has a conversation with me, I’ll believe this check,” he told me.

Here’s some more information about fake sweepstakes scams and the consequences of cashing phony checks.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Scams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.