2 local women warn of fraudulent check scheme

Crooks are now using the checking account numbers of victims whose accounts could be wiped clean.

Denise Jackson thought she had found her dream job.

After posting her resume online, she got an email about a position where she could work from home as an American liaison for a large and very legitimate British travel agency.

"He says 'you're going to get paid $3,000 for about 15 to 20 minutes of your time.' I'm thinking 'really!'" Jackson said.

Her job was going to be to cash customers' American checks, take a commission, and send the rest overseas.

Any fears she had were laid to rest, when she researched the company and found their website online and also spoke with someone claiming to be one of their US employees.

"He said, 'yes, he's legitimate. Whatever he's asking you to do, you can just go ahead and follow through and do it,'" Jackson said.

The first check arrived soon after in an envelope from Burbank, California.

Jackson saw the check was signed by someone with an address just four miles down the road on Germantown Avenue.

We tracked down Natalie Gonzalez, the check's owner, at her Mount Airy home.

"They have my signature. That's my exact one, with the little accent over my 'a' in Gonzalez," Gonzalez said.

When we showed her the check, she was stunned. It was her account and routing number, and her home address.

"It's a very good check and it would've came all out of my account," Gonzalez said.

According to Gonzales, she was a victim of the Target hack in 2013, but she still has no idea how that check information and her signature could have been stolen.

Clark is now investigating the attempted theft and mail fraud.

"Criminal networks get their hands on checks in many different ways. And then they have printing shops around the world that can reproduce fairly good looking checks," Clark said.

Denise Jackson says she became concerned this was a fraud, because the instructions told her to wire the money to someone named Olga in Russia, and not the UK where the travel company was supposedly based.

"And I'm like I'm not going to cash it because I'm confused now," Jackson said.

Then Jackson Googled the address on the envelope and it came back to a steakhouse.

The senders name appeared to also be fictitious and when she then called directly to the legitimate travel company in the UK:

"He said that we've heard this before, it's a scam, do not cash the check, do not give him any of your personal information," Jackson said.

Jackson ended up without a job, but fortunately for Gonzales, she didn't cash the check.

If Jackson had fallen prey to the check scam, most likely she would have been out thousands of dollars, too.

"They're just trying to get you to send real money to some place where they can collect it and you're stuck with a bad check that's going to bounce in your account," Clark said.

Clark says when someone contacts you for a job, beware if they are using a Hotmail or a Gmail account instead of a corporate email.

Also, he says be wary of someone saying they are going to pay a large sum for doing very little work and then tells you to wire money outside of the country.

Additionally, he says it's likely that call Jackson thought she was getting from California may have come from outside of the country too, with a spoofed phone number.

The investigation continues.