Received an unexpected cashiers check for over $2K from another state - is this some scam?
"It is likely a scam.  In fact the whole mystery shopping ""job"" may be a scam.  There is a Snopes page about cashier's check scams, as well as a US government page which specifically mentions mystery shopping as a scam angle. As for how the scam works, from the occ.gov site I just linked: However, cashier’s checks lately have become an attractive vehicle for fraud when used for payments to consumers. Although, the amount of a cashier’s check quickly becomes ""available"" for withdrawal by the consumer after the consumer deposits the check, these funds do not belong to the consumer if the check proves to be fraudulent. It may take weeks to discover that a cashier’s check is fraudulent. In the meantime, the consumer may have irrevocably wired the funds to a scam artist or otherwise used the funds—only to find out later, when the fraud is detected—that the consumer owes the bank the full amount of the cashier’s check that had been deposited. It is somewhat unusual in that, from what you say, there has been no attempt thus far to get money back.  However, your sister-in-law may have received that info separately, or received it as part of her mystery shopping job but didn't mention it to you with regard to this check.  Typically the scam involves telling the recipient to transfer money to a third party (e.g., by buying goods as a mystery shopper, or via wire transfer to ""reimburse"" someone associated with a sham operation).  By the time the cashier's check is revealed as fraudulent, the victim has already transferred away his/her own real money. It's probably worth taking the check to your or her bank and asking them about it.  They may have more info.  Also, banks usually want to know about scams like this because, in the long run, they accumulate data on them and share that with law enforcement and can eventually catch some of the scammers. Edit: Just to help anyone who may be reading this later.  The letter you added confirms it is absolutely a scam.  My boss was once contacted via a scam operation very similar to this.  The huge red flag (in addition to others already mentioned) is that you are being ""given"" a check for over $2000, of which only $25 is purportedly for actual mystery shopping and $285 is payment for you, the mystery shopper.  The whole rest of the $2000+ amount is for you to wire to ""another Mystery/Secret Shopper in order for them to complete their assignment"".  They are giving you $2000 to give to someone else who is supposedly another one of their own employees/contractors.  Ask yourself what sane business would conduct their operations in this way.  If you work at a law office, or a hamburger stand, or a school, or anything you like, does your boss ever say ""Here is your paycheck for $5000.  I know you only earned $1000, but I'm just going to give you the whole $5000, and you're supposed to use $4000 of it to pay your coworker Joe his wages.""  No.  There is no reason to do that except that the ""other mystery shopper"" is actually the scammer." This is a variation of a very common scam. The principle of the scam is this: I give you a check for a huge amount of money which you pay in your account. Then I ask you to pay some money from your account into a third account. Two months later the bank detects that my check was forged / stolen / cancelled / whatever and takes the huge amount of money away from your account. But you paid the money from your account, and that money is gone from your account and irrevocably ended up in my account. This is so very much a scam.  The accepted answer already tells you the basics of it.  In addition to the cheque being fake, there is also the possibility that the cheque is a legitimate cheque but has been stolen (or swindled off) from somebody else.  In that case, the delay with which the cashing of the cheque will blow up can be considerably longer than the accepted answer states since it depends on the other victim noticing and reporting the fraudulent transfer. The end result is the same: you are not going to be allowed to keep the money. Report this to both your sister's bank as well as her local police.  Nothing good can come off this. Some of these answers are actually wrong. Basically if you were to cash this cheque, you are committing bank fraud.  The cheque is usually fake and ends up with them cashing it off your account--this is how cheques work, when you cash a cheque, you are the one ultimately responsible for the validity of what you're cashing.  This is why large cheques are balanced against your active account--so what happens is they essentially just take money from you and leave you red handed.
I would go to the bank and just express the concern that the check sent to you might not fully clear. You don't want to spend it until you're sure it cleared. I'd ask for a manager to tell you when it will clear, then confirm after that date that it's cleared, with the same guy.  Perhaps someone in the industry can explain how long the bank has before deciding the check is bad. 10 days? 2 weeks? Really, it should either clear or bounce by the second night.  I'd not risk doing this for anyone. Anyone I know personally can cash their own check, and I'd not get involved with anyone I don't know on a financial matter like this. EDIT - See Littleadv comment below. Good checks clear fast, a forged check has time for the victim to go to the bank and challenge the signature and cashing of the check. The victim can have 60 days to do this. That's the issue, I am wrong, the bank manager couldn't confirm the check was good so soon. "The answer probably varies with local law, and you haven't said where you're located. In most or all US states, it appears that after some statutory length of time, the bank would transfer the money to the state government, where it would be held indefinitely as ""unclaimed property"" in the name of the recipient (technically, the payee, the person to whom the check is made payable).  This process is called escheatment.  Most states publish a list of all unclaimed property, so at some later date the payee could find their name on this list, and realize they were entitled to the funds.  There would then be a process by which the payee could claim the funds from the state.   Usually the state keeps any interest earned on the money. As far as I know, there typically wouldn't be any way for you, the person who originated the payment, to collect the money after escheatment.  (Before escheatment, if you have the uncashed check in your possession, you can usually return it to the bank and have it refunded to you.) I had trouble finding an authoritative source explaining this, but a number of informal sources (found by Googling ""cashier check escheatment"") seem to agree that this is generally how it works.  Here is the web site for a law firm, saying that in California an uncashed cashier's check escheats to the state after 3 years. Until escheatment occurs, the recipient can cash the check at any time.  I don't think that cashier's checks become ""stale"" like personal checks do, and there isn't any situation in which the funds would automatically revert to you." "It's a scam. The cashier's check will be forged. Craigslist has a warning about it here (item #3). What kind of payment do you think is not fakable? Or at least not   likely to be used in scams? When on craigslist - deal only locally and in person. You can ask to see the person's ID if you're being paid by check When being paid by check, how can seeing his/her ID help? In case the   check isn't cashable, I can find that person by keeping record of   his/her ID?  If you're paid by check, the payers details should be printed on the check. By checking the ID you can verify that the details match (name/address), so you can find the payer later. Of course the ID can be faked too, but there's so much you can do to protect yourself. You'll get better protection (including verified escrow service) by selling on eBay. Is being paid by cash the safest way currently,   although cash can be faked too, but it is the least common thing that   is faked currently? Do you recommend to first deposit the cash into a   bank (so that let the bank verify if the cash is faked), before   delivering the good?  For Craigslist, use cash and meet locally. That rules out most scams as a seller. What payment methods do you think are relatively safe currently?   Then getting checks must be the least favorite way of being paid. Do   you think cash is better than money order or cashier order?  You should only accept cash. If it is a large transaction, you can meet them at your bank, have them get cash, and you receive the cash from the bank. Back to the quoted scam, how will they later manipulate me? Are they interested in   my stuffs on moving sale, or in my money? They will probably ""accidentally"" overpay you and ask for a refund of some portion of the overpayment. In that case you will be out the entire amount that you send back to them and possibly some fees from your bank for cashing a bad check." In the united states, they may request a check written by the bank to the other party. I have had to make large payments for home settlements, or buying a car. If the transaction was over a specified limit, they wanted a cashiers check. They wanted to make sure it wouldn't bounce.  I have had companies rebate me money, and say the maximum value of the check was some small value. I guess that was to prevent people from altering the check. One thing that has happened to me is that a large check I wanted to deposit was held for a few extra days to make sure it cleared. I wouldn't have access to the funds until the deadline passed. "This is another version of an old scam -- ""let me have a check deposited in your account because I can't open one for some reason, and I'll share some of the money with you.""  Here the scammer is promising to ""start a business"" with you as a way to gain your confidence and trust. The first danger sign is that you only know this person from online.  They are not someone you are friends with in the ""real"" world.  They could be anybody.   They used the name of a big company as a way to make what they're doing sound legitimate, but it's all a fraud.  They could be depositing a faked Exxon check into your account, which could land YOU in huge trouble. Here's the thing -- The only way Exxon (or any other company) can deposit money in a bank under someone's name is if that person provides the account and routing numbers to an account that already exists.  No company can just create an account in another person's name.  That's Hollywood movie stuff, but it's not how banking works.  To open an account, the bank would need identification on the account holder, so your ""friend"" already has an account if Exxon has allegedly deposited money.  Further, Exxon isn't going to take back money that has already been deposited.  In fact, they can't take it back.  If the account is in his name, they can't do anything to the account or with the account.   This is a situation you should run away from and never look back.  Nothing about this story sounds right or legitimate, but this is one of the oldest scams out there since the beginning of the Internet. You would be well advised to stay VERY far away from your supposed friend, because they're anything but your friend.  You are being SCAMMED.  Don't be a victim.  Stop communicating with this person immediately, and DON'T give them any personal information of any kind.  They're crooks! I hope this helps. Good luck!" The check is from your credit card company.  Whose ever the money is, it is certainly not the credit card company's, and they know that.  This is why they cut the check to you.  You should definitely cash the check (or deposit it into your bank account).   You've tried to contact the mattress store multiple times, and they aren't responding.  At some point, you've got to say that you've done everything that you could to do the right thing.   Now, keep in mind that at some point in the future, the mattress store may come back to you and ask for the money back.  If I were you, I would not spend this money for quite some time.  Put it away in a savings account (maybe add it to your emergency fund).  Then if they come back in the future looking for money, you can easily write them a check.  You probably also want to keep some documentation on what you've done already to try to give the money back to them, just in case for some reason they try to claim that you owe them some interest or something like that. This sounds like a scam. Did they email you out of the blue to offer you this 'job', by any chance, and you'd never heard of them before? That's an incredibly large red flag in and of itself. While I don't know quite what the scam is likely to be, here's how I would suggest it might work: Other variants are possible - say using a cheque rather than PayPal, or having Person A be the scammer as well. But this being a legitimate transaction is very unlikely. "Money has to come from somewhere.  It can't just appear.  So if there is really an aunt at an agency, and she is sending checks, then she is writing checks from that company, and stealing from that company.  If that is the case, then the person with whom you are in contact would be using you to launder money (hide its illegal origin) and when the aunt was caught, you would be also. If it is really being done between countries, then it might be more difficult for them to find you, but it is still illegal. However, it is also likely that your contact may be using a common scam, as described by another answerer, that of asking for money in return for a cashier's check.  Although cashier's checks were designed to be ""safer"" than regular checks, in that they won't bounce, if it is a fake cashier's check, it was never worth anything in the first place.  When the bank tries to claim the cash from the other bank, and finds it doesn't exist, or there is no record of that check, then the effect is similar to that of a personal check bouncing: the bank will want the money back. If you have already given a portion of that money to your contact, chances are, when your find this out, he will be long gone.  I would not have anything further to do with this person. Good luck." "There are at least a couple problems:   Your friend may not manage money well and so may not have enough money in the account.  Check bounces.  They get charged a fee.  You get charged a fee.  You have to chase after the friend to get the fee paid.  The friend was cheap about the regular fees and doesn't want to pay this much higher fee.   Your ""friend"" may really be a crook.  The check is no good.  Perhaps it's written under a false identity such that you are attempting to cash a stolen/forged check.  You cash it.  They take the money and disappear.  You get charged with participating in the crime, go to jail, and now have a criminal record (worst case).   My quick thought is that if you don't know the person well enough to know the home address, you don't know the person well enough to cash checks.   In general, I would view this the same as a loan.  When loaning to a friend, you should never loan more than you are willing to lose.  Note that an actual loan would be safer.  If you loan $50 to a friend, at worst you're out $50.  If you deposit a fraudulent check, you did something illegal.  You will have to be convincing when you tell your story to the police.  If they don't believe you, they could charge you.  A couple bad breaks and you could go to jail." "Yes, you should contact the bank and report it.  They will eventually ""find"" that money if it's not yours.  You better get it over with rather than having more surprises later." As I replied to someone else who said that:  I'm often having to send stuff with the check. Paperwork, a bill etc. While that would work to a person who knows me, it's usually not going to work with a business or government who needs to know why I'm sending this check. "In general, a lack of endorsement (meaning nothing written by the receiver on the back of the check) is equivalent to it being endorsed ""as deposit only"" to a bank that the depositor has an account with. (See Uniform Commercial Code §4-205.) That is, the bank that receives a deposit without any endorsement promises to the banks that process the check along the line all the way back to your bank, that they properly deposited the money into the account of the entity that the check was made out to. With checks being processed with more and more automation, it's getting fairly common for there to be little writing needed on the check itself, as the digital copy gets submitted to the banking system for clearing. If you're concerned about there being some sort of fraud, that perhaps the entity that you're sending money to isn't the ones that should be getting it, or that they're not actually getting the money, or something like that, that's really an entirely different concern. I would expect that if you were saying that you paid something, and the payee said that you hadn't, that you would dispute the transaction with your bank. They should be able to follow the electronic trail to where the money went, but I suspect they only do so as part of an investigation (and possibly only in an investigation that involved law enforcement of some type). If you're just curious about what bank account number your deposit went into, then it just looks like you're the one trying to commit some sort of fraud (even if you're just being curious), and they don't have much incentive to try to help you out there." "Can you get a cashier's check from your bank, made out in the charity's name, and mail it to the charity? From what I recall of the last few times I've gotten a cashier's check from the bank, it didn't have anything on it that identified me. A determined person could probably trace it back to you, but you're not really looking for strong anonymity. Another possibility would be a postal money order, but I'm not sure whether you can leave the ""From"" section blank. The money order would have a fee, but the cashier's check should be free. (It is at both my local bank and my CU.)" These unclaimed wages were presumably yours for the taking in Year X when employer paid your other wages.  Maybe this is just about uncashed paychecks.  In that case, they would have appeared on your W-2 for that year.  If you filed your return including that W-2 income, then this is likely not new income. This would be a constructive receipt evaluation.  Income occurs when you have the right to income, whether or not you have actual receipt of it.  For example, if you are paid via cash drops into a piggy bank but you wait a week (for the start of a new tax period) to withdraw your cash from the piggy bank, then the money was constructively received on the day it went into the piggy bank.  This prevents taxpayers from structuring their actual receipt of income, for tax purposes or otherwise, in ways at odds with their true economic position.  You can't delay taxable income that is legally yours simply by refusing to accept it when you have the right to it. The wages were income at the time your employer proffered the paycheck.  You did not cash it, but I suspect that you filed it on that year's taxes.  There's a slight wrinkle that when the check went stale your ability to access the money was not so straightforward.  However, you still had the legal right to the money, so my perspective is that the analysis did not change when the check went stale. "The answers here are all correct.  This is 100% scam, beyond any reasonable doubt.  Don't fall for it.  However, I felt it valuable to explain what would happen were you to fall for this.  It's not all that hard to understand, but it involves understanding some of the time delays that exist in modern banking today. The most important thing to understand is that depositing a check does not actually put dollars in your account, even though it appears to.  A check is not legal tender for debts public and private.  It's a piece of paper known as a ""bill of exchange.""  It's an authorization for a payee (you), to request that their bank pay you the amount on the check.  A transaction made with a check does not actually draw to a close until your bank and their bank communicate and cause the actual transfer of funds to take place.  This process is called ""clearing"" the check. Despite living in the modern times, this process is slow.  It can take 7-10 days to clear a check (especially if it is an international bank).  This is not good for the banking business.  You can imagine how difficult it would be to tell a poor client, who is living paycheck to paycheck, that he can't have his pay until the check clears a week later.  Banks have an interest in hiding this annoying feature of the modern banking system, so they do.  When you deposit a check, the bank will typically advance you the money (an interest free loan, in effect) while the check ""floats"" (i.e. until it clears).  This creates the illusion that the money is actually in your account for most intents and purposes.  (presumably a bank would distinguish between the floating check and a cleared check if you tried to close out your account, but otherwise it looks and feels like the money is in your hands). Of course, if the check is dishonored (because the payer had insufficient funds, or the account simply did not exist), your bank will not get the money.  At this moment, they will cancel any advances you received and notify you that the check bounced.  Again, this happens 7-10 days later. The general pattern of this scam is that they will pay you by a method which clears slowly, like a check.  They will then ask you to withdraw the money using a faster clearing method (like a wire transfer or withdrawing the cash).  Typically they will be encouraging you to move quickly (they are on a timetable... when their check bounces, the game is up!)  At this time, it will appear as though the account has a positive balance, but in fact it has a negative balance plus an advance on the check.  This looks great until 7-10 days later, when the check bounces.  At that time, the bank will cancel the advance, and reality will set in.  You will now have an open bank account, legally opened by you in your own name, which is deeply in debt.  Meanwhile, the scammer walks away with all the money that you sent them (which cleared quickly). There are many variants which can hide the details.  Some can play games with check kiting to try to make your first check clear (then try to rope you in for a more painful hit).  Some will change the instruments they use (checks are the easy ones, so they're simply most common).  Don't try to think ""maybe this one is legit.""  These scammers literally make a living off of making shady transactions look legit. Things I would recommend looking out for:"