Payment Processing Scams

Payment processing scams are everywhere, they come in countless varieties, but, the general theme is always the same. The business/charity or individual needs your help to simply process some payment for them and you get to keep a substantial part of the payment as your commission just for doing the transaction for them. What could be easier than that? It’s all legal isn’t it? Unfortunately for you these are all scams and you will find yourself in hot water, owing thousands of dollars if you even try one out. If you want to learn a bit more about them, read on.
These scams are very dangerous and you can find them everywhere, in ads, posted on job boards as real legitimate jobs, or by an email you received. Although they come in many flavours, and some are masked better than others, the general theme of these scams is always the same. The scammer will give you some check or even a bank wire transfer into your bank account, along with forwarding instructions for where the payment is to go. You simply withdraw the money from your account after the payment has cleared and forward it to the payee via Western Union, minus your commission and the Western Union fees. The problem for you comes later, you see, all these payments being sent to you have been hacked or stolen from someone else’s bank accounts. As soon as the theft is realized by the bank or person, the issuing bank issues a reversal against your account and now you are on the hook for the entire amount of the transaction. The bank doesn’t care if you were scammed or not, they just want their money back and will do whatever it takes to get it from you. So, if you received a payment for $2,000, withdrew it, kept 10% ($200) and sent the $1800 on, you are now responsible for the entire $2,000, not just the $1800 you sent on. Since you are the one who withdrew the money from your account, you are the one now responsible.
No legitimate business, charity or individual needs your help to process a transaction. These are ALL scams, it is just that simple. If they really needed to have Western Union payments sent to their clients they could do it themselves using their own bank and would not even have to pay a commission. Never get involved with ANY sort of payment processing transaction, and whatever you do, no matter how official the scammers might seem, never give your name, bank or any other personal details, or you could also find yourself the next victim with money being stolen from their account too.

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