HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - People are still falling victim to scams such as advance fee fraud. How can you protect yourself? Brian Ishikawa, senior vice president at Bank of Hawaii is here with some tips.
Advance fee fraud is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from individuals or entities. Advance fee fraud itself is nothing new, however stories used in the scams change. Indications are that losses attributed to advance fee fraud are in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, nationwide. What is still a prevalent form of advance fee fraud is transfer of hidden funds.
In a transfer of hidden funds fraud scheme, the victim is contacted by someone claiming to have hidden a large sum of money in a foreign country. The person asks for the victim's assistance in transferring these funds into the U.S. Typically, the fraudster will claim that it is extra funds from a contact or that it is government money that was hidden during a recent government overthrow. The victim is usually asked to utilize his/her bank account to accept wire transfers and checks. The fraudster will claim that all the victim needs to do is wire transfer 90 to 95 percent of the funds to another entity and to keep the remaining funds. Unfortunately, counterfeit checks are used in the scheme and the victim is often out the amount of money that was wire transferred abroad.
Some tips to help reduce your risk are:
- Know who you are dealing with
- Don't hesitate to talk to someone else if you're unsure about a situation
- Wait for checks to clear before sending or spending any of the funds
- If an offer or opportunity appears too good to be true, it probably is
If you have additional questions, Bank of Hawaii has a free seminar on Protecting Yourself Against Fraud which covers this specific type of fraud and numerous other variations. This seminar is open to the public and is on Wednesday, March 9 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Pearlridge Branch.
