In this obvious scam, what might happen to my co-worker?

Factual Questions
1

I’m going to change some details to protect the gullible. My co-worker is a sugar baby of sorts. She has had “arrangements” with various men. According to her, some intimate, some not. Some online only, some in person. She met one on a sugar baby site and they started talking. She had sad things happen to her related to a death in the family, and so did he, he said…they bonded over that. Never met, talked on phone. Eventually he paid off some credit card debt for her. Except…two days later he asked her to send some money to a friend of his who needed it for some reason, and he was out of the country so he couldn’t do it (of course). So, she used that same credit card to buy Amazon gift cards and sent them to him. Now she realizes that she has been scammed, but so far the payment has not been reversed or anything. It’s been a week. She’s very nervous, because she gave the guy her login information to pay the payment (she changed it now). He added a bank account to the card to use it to pay the bill. That bank account is still attached to the card right now, but who knows if it has funds in it. He paid off more than she bought in gift cards, but she will be out the money she used to buy the gift cards if the payment is determined to be fraudulent. So…maybe he’s laundering money somehow and the account is really his, but the money in the account was illegally gained? Or maybe the account is not really his, and it’s just a common scam to get her to pay money? She feels very silly but there was a lot of time gaining trust and such.

If/when it is determined that the account used to pay off the debt was not his account, is it likely the payment will get reversed by her own credit card company? Or is it possible that the bank that was used to pay the payment will have to eat the loss? Did she herself commit any fraud? She didn’t know that anything was wrong when he paid the debt off. They met on a sugar baby site - according to her, - you’d be surprised what lonely rich men will pay for. Conversation, etc. So at the time that she gave him the log on info to add his account, she might have been gullible, but she was not knowingly participating in anything illegal. She feels dumb enough and I might let her read this thread. So if when responding you could avoid a lot of preaching and life admonitions and how dumb she is and how she deserves it, and how gullible she is, that would be great. These are factual questions, if anyone knows the answers who has worked in credit card fraud. The payment to her card was about $10,000 and she bought about $2,000 in Amazon gift cards. The main questions are, if it was a fraudulent payment, is it possible that her credit card company won’t necessarily have to eat it, but rather the account that was maybe hacked will? Will the payment for sure be reversed so that she will definitely owe her original debt plus the new debt for the Amazon cards? Would she get in trouble if she just closes the account? I guess she can’t close it until the new debt is paid off. What if he pays that new debt off too, she has a zero balance, and she closes the account? Will the credit card company then sue her for $10,000? I doubt anyone knows the answers to all of this but she’s trying to figure out if she’s possibly guilty of fraud herself — I tend not to think so. She was a victim but I don’t think an actor in actual fraud - which requires intent. Is there any way she gets off scot free and is not out the $2,000?

2

Who is to say ? She gets to argue that the hacker used her account to money launder stolen funds into clean funds,

and the bank or cops or both get to argue that she colluded with a fraudster for the purpose of winning $8000. While it might not be much evidence to just receive money from a fraudster, it becomes something when she helps send money on.

I fear this story about bonding and love and getting help from a stranger is just someone who decided to participate in money laundering asking us if their cover story is convincing enough ???

3

It’s hard to follow all that, so bear with me if I’m mistaken in some details. This sounds like a standard Nigerian Prince scam, with some new decorative trim, and mixed in with the “sugar baby” scam.

I see two completely separate activities here. She was scamming him and others for money, offering her “services” in exchange for their money. This guy appears to have been playing the old scam of PRETENDING to send ten thousand dollars to her, and have her send two thousand back to him. (It’s always ten and two, when I read about these things, I don’t know why!).

The two scams are separate, in that her scam didn’t depend on his scam or vice versa. They aren’t even morally linked, in that the fact that both people are scamming, doesn’t make either one of them a good guy, or less of a bad actor.

I’m not a lawyer, I just pay attention as I read about this kind of thing. I know that the BANKS involved have very specific rules which they follow, which don’t factor in how anyone “feels” about anything. If the payoff of her ten thousand dollar credit card bill by him proves to have been faked, then the bank will restore that debt, and she will still owe the bank that money. Since she volunteered the two thousand, and SHE was not making a false payment, she will lose that money as well as the cost to her of having arranged it. It’s no different from the banks’s point of view, from someone giving money to a charity which proves to be less charitable than desired. Her two thousand dollar payment is between her and the guy who she gave it to. The bank has no responsibility.

People who have been defrauded can, if the person committing the fraud is caught, and that person has assets, get legal restitution of their lost funds. But the fraudster has to be caught, AND has to have the money.

I’ve never heard of anyone being in legal trouble for having BEEN defrauded, provided they didn’t do anything illegal as apart of the process. According to what I see here, she didn’t do anything illegal when she sent her money to this guy.

Her participation in the “sugar baby” scams, may or may not be illegal. I haven’t read of anyone being prosecuted for pretending to be friendly in exchange for money, so I doubt that. She MIGHT be prosecutable for prostitution in some places, if she performed “intimate acts” in exchange for money. But again, that would be entirely separate from the scam he pulled on her.

Bottom line, the Bank will only be on the hook for money which was lost due to THEIR failing to follow correct protocols, and you’ve listed none here that I can see. As I read this, and compare it to all the other stories I’ve read that were anything like it, it looks to me that she will owe the banks 12,000 dollars, if the guy’s payoff of her account does get reversed. And she wont be in any legal trouble, unless she admits to prostitution.

But as I said, I just read other cases. I’m not a lawyer.

4

Interesting. I don’t think she’s scamming anyone in the sugar baby context - both parties know what they’re doing there. Even if it were prostitution- prostitution is not a “scam” - it’s just illegal. The rest of what was said, I agree…highly unlikely she gets to keep the payoff money.

5

Anyone else reminded of Fleas by Dean Ing?

6

I was reminded of this poster.

The cow-orker might appreciate a copy, as a guide in her future moneyraising endeavors.

7

This story doesn’t make much sense. I very much doubt that your co-worker has told you the truth.

Why would she need to give him her login credentials to make a payment on her credit card? He could just pay the money into the account. You can always pay money into anyone’s account without having their login details.

Who would ever pay $10,000 to someone he had contacted via a ‘sugar baby’ site (whatever that means) and never met, without getting something in return? This is nonsense.

My guess is that she is knowingly involved in money laundering, and she thinks that someone may have double-crossed her.

8

Well, yeah, I agree that “scam” is one of those labels that can be debatable. Most people call it a scam if someone lies to you about giving you MONEY, but not everyone calls it a scam if someone lies to you about how much they LIKE YOU. I personally consider it to be just as much a scam to pretend to be a friend or lover in exchange for my money, as it is to pretend to be in need of my generosity, in exchange for my money.

9

“Sugar Baby,” a prostitute?

10

Assuming this is a scam which seems fairly certain she’s probably not legally liable for the 10,000 fraudulent payment to her account which will assumedly be reversed when the payment is deemed fraudulent and the 10,000 debt will back on her card, but she* is* liable for the 2,000 in gift cards as a financial obligation as she actually spent the money of her own volition so she’s out 2,000. She was stupid in the extreme but I can't see her legal jeopardy here if she pays off the 2,000 (soon to be 12,000). I don't see a plausible way she can avoid paying the 2,000.

The scam is fairly brilliant actually. You create a kinda-sorta obligation with a big gift and the other person follows through anticipating greater future rewards. Although it’s a low probability if she absolutely wants to avoid getting charged with some laundering charge it might be prudent to report what happened to the card company so she has some plausible deniability as a victim not a participant.

In the end there are a lot more expensive scams than $ 2000 she could have gotten hit with. It’s annoying but not life changing. You can check the status of Amazon gift cards you have bought to see if they have been refunded. If not you can cancel them.

11

With some services, once you set up a “pay from” account, you can’t review or edit the account details. If the “pay from” account number changes, for instance, you can’t go on and fix the number - you have to set up a new “pay from” account. I’m guessing this is her “patron’s” way of concealing the account info from her (like hiding the fact that it’s not his account, or that the name he’s using is not his real name).

He may also have conducted some transactions while he was logged in. Even if there’s no money missing, he may have shuffled money in and out to hide its source. She’ll have to check her account’s transaction history.

Remember that scams rely on people who don’t ask too many questions. It may be obvious to YOU that there are other ways to put money into someone’s account. However, if you’re a scammer, you’re going to seek out people who don’t know this, or who just don’t think that way.

12

They say every woman is sitting on a gold mine… :smiley:

IANAL - I’m not clear on this “linked account”. Is it possible it’s some other random person’s account, details obtained illegally. If you know someone’s bank details, how do you get their money into your pocket without getting caught? You find someone else to take the money and send it to you.

If this is the case, someone out there does not realize their account is down $10,000 already.

It’s not traditional money laundering, since that involves getting cash into a bank with a plausible explanation - it’s more like theft, getting easily negotiable and relatively untraceable money out of a bank.

Is she legally liable? Assuming she can prove that she was acting in what she thought was good faith, no. Someone gives you $10,000, you give them $2,000 - perfectly fine. However, she obviously would have to pay back the $10,000 if it was transferred to her account illegally.

(About the “sugar daddy” thing - it would only be a problem if it’s fairly direct quid pro quo payment for sex, which could qualify for prostitution; and if they wanted to get really picky, income tax evasion. Someone gives you a gift- no tax. You take payment for services, taxable. )

13

& that could take a while as Reg E gives the consumer 60 days from statement receipt* to notify the bank of unauthorized (electronic) transaction.

There could potentially be three parties here
F - OP’s Friend
S - Sugar Daddy / Scammer
O - Other party

If S knows O’s bank account info, he could have used that to pay the $10,000 on the CC. Once O discovers the missing $10,000, they can contact their bank & get the money back in their account. If would be reversed from the bank account where F has a CC, & then subsequently from F’s CC account.

  • Everything happens nice & neat if it happens w/in 60 days, but there are some provisions that allow things to go longer. If your bank cuts statements on the last day of the month & this happened on the first of the month, O won’t receive their statement for 35± days (30/31 days in the month + printing / mailing time), which is when one of the 60 day clocks starts ticking. There are a few, rare exceptions that can extend this, as well. I wouldn’t breath a big sigh of relief for about 100 days, just to be safe.
14

There is no “other party” here.

The Sugar Daddy gave Sugar Baby $10,000. Baby then sent $2,000 back to Daddy’s “friend”, actually to an account controlled by Daddy. Except it will turn out that the $10,000 Daddy gave her was from a stolen credit card, and Baby won’t be able to keep that money, so she’ll be back to owing $10,000. And the $2000 she sent to his “friend” has no connection to the fraudulent $10,000 she got from Daddy, that any day now the bank will inform her wasn’t real. So to get back her $2000 she’d have to cancel that transaction separately somehow, but it seems to me that if Daddy knows what he’s doing that money is long gone.

Again, classic Nigerian Prince scam. Here’s a lot of money for you, just send me a little bit of that money. Except the money you get is fake and the money you send is real, and when the dust settles you don’t have the fake money and you also don’t have the real money you sent away.

This sometimes happens with people trying to sell stuff on the internet. You sell your Beanie Baby on Craigslist for $20. Someone pays you, but by mistake sends you $200. Oh noes! They say, look, sorry about that, can you just send me $140 back, and you can have that extra $20 for your trouble. So you send them $140, and you’re $40 ahead, right? Except a week later the bank tells you that the $200 was fraudulent, and you can’t keep it, no $200 for you. So you’re out $140.

The difference in this case is that what she was selling was herself. It’s kind of clever, because in this legal grey zone the scammed sugar babies are less likely to try to go to the cops or complain, because while what they did might not be technically illegal it’s still a grey zone. The only catch for Fake Daddy is that the Sugar Babies he’s trying to scam might be a bit more wised-up than your average guy selling Beanie Babies on Craigslist. Still, even if Sugar Baby figures out a way to get that $10,000 in cash out of her bank account before the bank realizes the error, and then skips town, he’s not out anything except a stolen credit card number. She might be able to defraud $10,000 from the bank, but that’s not coming out of his pocket. Worst case scenario for Fake Daddy is that she’s wise and doesn’t send him the $2000, in which case it’s just a waste of time.

15

Wait, now I see who the “other party” is. It’s the person whose credit card or account or whatever was used by Daddy to send the money to Baby. When I said there was no “other party”, I meant that there was no Daddy’s Grandma who needed hip surgery. I guess if Baby needed to talk with Grandma, Daddy could find one of his scammer buddies to play Grandma on the phone.

So there could be a third party, whose account was fraudulently used by Daddy to send $10,000 to Baby. And when that fraud gets discovered, the bank takes the $10,000 from Baby and gives it back to Identity Fraud Victim #1. And Daddy keeps the $2000 that Baby sent him.

16

Thinking out loud here. There $20 for the item. $20 extra for the trouble. $140 to repay the buyer. Adding up to $180?

17

Another possibility is that SD has created a throw-away account and transfers money into it from fraudulently accessed accounts, then uses that to pay F; rather than directly connecting some victim’s account to F’s credit card. Which means it could take a while for the authorities to unravel the mess.

But the end result is - most likely they will find the end point of the $10,000 transaction and take it back from F. Whatever she sends to SD will be long gone.

18

Fuck. I just didn’t add things up correctly. Make that: “I sent you $200, send back $160 and keep the extra $20 for your trouble.”

Either that or I was trying to run the classic “Fast Change” scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ePD3hg73g

19

My guess is that the ‘I’ll send you a check that appears to clear but turns out to be no good’ has become the 'I’ll deposit money in your account that seems to clear but turns out to be no good '. She’s probably on the hook for 12,000.

20

I’m guessing that:

  1. Daddy had a fake check made and deposited it into a bank account.
  2. Daddy logged into Baby’s CC account and linked his bank account to the CC
  3. Daddy then makes a $10000 transfer from his bank to the CC
  4. Baby buys Amazon gift cards with CC and sends them to the “friend”

What typically happens is that the bank reverses the deposit in step 1 when they discover it a few weeks later. I’m not sure if the bank will reverse the transfer that happens in step 3. Can they do that? That seems overly aggressive if they start reversing transfers out of the account. I thought they would just go after the account owner for the fraudulent deposit of $10,000. Reversing transfers could cause major issues for legitimate customers, since it may end up nullifying payments for legitimate services like mortgages, insurance, etc.

I wonder if Daddy’s bank account is really some other sugar baby (Baby2)? He sweet talks Baby2 into giving up her bank account details, deposits the check into Baby2’s account, links Baby2’s bank to Baby1’s CC, and does the transfer. Baby2 may be on the hook for the $10000 and Baby1 could get away with $8000 (if she’s unethical).