Recently, the New Paltz Police Department has received several complaints of counterfeit Postal Money Orders and Travelers Checks being received by residents in the mail. In the two most recent cases, both complainants advised us they received these unsolicited with no other documentation in the envelope. Both victims became suspicious and reported the incidents to our department.

Typically, these scammers will often include a letter relating a sob story or money making scheme and ask you to cash the checks and send them back the cash allowing you to keep a portion for "your troubles." There are many variations to this scheme, click here for more details. Here's the bottom line, if it's free and seems to good to be true, IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT'S A SCAM! To make matters worse, if you deposit these checks in your bank account and then withdraw cash from the account, the checks will ultimately come back as counterfeits and guess who will be held responsible to reimburse the bank.....you guessed it, YOU WILL!! Don't do it!! IF IT SEEMS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT'S A SCAM!!

Click here to learn more about counterfeit travelers checks

Click here for additional images of counterfeit checks

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