Beware of chess scam

New scam targets chess coaches

Written by FM Eric Schiller
1 Sept 2008

I would like to warn our chess community that there is a new scam going around trying to defraud chess coaches. Recently I received an e-mail that seemed legitimate enough but was an attempt to set up a bank fraud.

I quickly realized what was going on and decided to turn the tables by pretending to go along while coordinating actions with the fraud division of my bank. As is typical of these scams the idea was to send me a large check from which I was supposed to send some money to a third party. The plan was that I would send the money and then their check would bounce leaving me out the amount sent.

The setup was a travel scam. I was sent a bogus check drawn on a legitimate Massachusetts company for several thousand dollars, supposedly to provide coaching for the 17-year-old daughter of someone who allegedly worked at the Vatican. I was to send $1500 to a supposed that travel agent in Texas using the scammer’s favorite method: Western Union.

Since I have some experience sending scammers on wild goose chases, I decided to go after this particular scammer by claiming that all the Western Union branches in my area had closed and that I would have to transfer the money by bank transfer instead. This got me access to all the information about their bank account, which I duly turned over to my bank.

Hopefully, they will go after the person who opened that account but in any case they will close down the account so no further scams can use it. I also notified the legitimate Massachusetts company that there are dank account was being used in the fraud.

The important thing is that you be aware that there is an attempt to defraud chess instructors so if you receive anything that looks like the e-mail below, delete it right away and do not respond. This particular e-mail, despite its reference to the Vatican, was sent from Israel and the bank account they wanted me to send money to was in Houston.

Source: Latest Chess