Putting cash in the mail

Victims Asked To Send Cash Through The Postal Mailbox

Some of the new kinds of social media influencers post pictures on Snapchat, YouTube and analogous platforms to depict their lavish lifestyle to their followers and ask them to send money for tutorials on making money. 

They explain how to use various tricks on popular eCommerce brands to earn, and they even hire recruits into their schemes. Many suffered losses through lottery scams where they get a phone call or an email that they won a big prize, and to claim the prize; they need to pay a small fee. 

They con youngsters by offering them a new job where the job-seeker is asked to pay money upfront to secure their positions.  

How Does It Happen?

Most fake deals involve money transfers where the fraudsters want the victim to send money through wire transfer or buy gift cards or vouchers, or they are asked to send money in cash in the mail. 

The FTC found they ask victims to pay through such illegitimate modes because it is fast where the transaction history is not secured. 

The same applies to hard cash. If you send money to someone, it is not recorded anywhere and can be accessed or used in various transactions. Some clients were asked to send the cash by embedding it in a book, where they needed to divide and place the notes between different book pages. 

Most such cases were reported by older adults of 70 years or older. The caller pretended to be a friend or a family member needing money. 

They called the older victims and said, "I'm in jail, and please send money to get me out on bail." There are multiple variations of the same story – that ultimately aims to extract money from the victim's wallets. 

How To Protect Yourself?

No matter how alarming it appears, you should not send money or make fund transfers to anonymous accounts if you get any such call. Instead, it would be best to be alerted and report the matter to family members or talk to someone who is supposed to be in trouble directly. 

As you make sure about the circumstances with other family members, do not pay anyone through a gift card, wire transfer or cash in the mail.