How I Wound Up With the FBI On My Doorstep

I fell for a Nigerian money scam. Gullible and greedy.

“May we come in?” said the two men in ties?

This was in the late nineties, so it’s been a while. I think you might find it entertaining. It’s sort of a bar room story.

I had my business office in my house in Marmora, NJ. I was writing and producing corporate training material. Somehow I got on a “suckers” email list. It was the early days of spam, so everyone was a bit naïve, me included. Nobody had ever heard of the Nigerian money scams.

So, I get this email from somebody in Nigeria (I see you’re smiling already), saying that they needed help in transferring some money from the USA to Nigeria. Now, I don’t remember exactly the reason, but it had something to do with they didn’t have access to American banking.

The deal was, they would send me a check for $40,000, which I would deposit, keep a fee of $10,000 and wire the $30,000 balance to them in Africa.

Of course, this sounded shady. So I waited for the part where they asked me to put up my own money, but they never did. What was the catch? So now I’m curious.

Ten grand is a nice chunk of change. It’s worth about $16,000 in 2023 money. If it was real, I figured, as long as I paid taxes on my portion, there is no way I’m getting in trouble. I was just sending along money that was theirs for a small fee. They would be laundering money if anything. Not my problem.

Of course, I’m no lawyer so I had no idea if I would be liable or not, but I said to “hell with it” and took the chance. It was probably all bullshit, anyway.

Three or four days later the check arrives in the mail. Sure enough $40,000. Frankly, I was shocked, but I figured, this check is no good. The first thing I did was drive down to my bank. I asked one of the officers to investigate if it was. I wasn’t going to deposit it, unless I knew it was legit.

So she did, and she told me that the account was funded and the check would clear. Wow!

So I deposit the check. Three days later I call the bank, and they tell me the check actually did cleared. Wow again!

I go down to the bank again and arrange a wire transfer to Nigeria for $30,000 to an account number that I was given. Now, I briefly thought that maybe I just might keep all of it, but the idea of some Nigerian with a machete tracking me down didn’t really seem appealing. So, I bank my ten-grand and off goes the thirty balance. Pretty easy money, right? I’m thinking of what I’m going to do with the cash.

The next day I get a frantic call from the bank. The check was no good. It was a bouncer. It was fraudulently drawn on an automobile dealership in Texas, and the bank wants their money back. Excuse me! This is like something out of the Leo DeCaprio movie, “Catch Me If You Can.”

I inform them that they gave me the okay, that they cleared the check. I was told it was cleared as a courtesy. I was floored. Courtesy? What were they talking about?

Giving back the ten-thousand was no problem, since I never had it, but where was I supposed to get the thirty. I didn’t have it. It was pulling my hair out time. What an idiot!

The next day I got a call from the bank. The transfer didn’t go through. It was sent to an invalid account number. Whew! Those idiots were so dumb they gave me the wrong information. Luck was on my side. I was free and clear.

A few days later I get a call from the owner of the dealership, asking me what went down. I explain to him and he tells me the check was stolen. A few of them got passed. We chit-chat a minute, I explain who I am and what I do, and I apologize. No problem. No harm, no foul.

Move forward two weeks. Doorbell rings and there are two guys with suits and ties at my door looking just like FBI, which they were.

“FBI, may we come in.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

So we march down to my office, as I start to sweat. I go into detail about what went down. They obviously knew I was telling the truth about what happened, and how the bank gave me the okay, so they weren’t going to try to prosecute me or anything.  They just wanted information from the horse’s mouth (or should I say horse’s ass).

I have no idea what happened to the poor bank officer who told me the check was clear, but they caught the guy in Texas, dumped him in the clink and broke up their check-cashing scheme. First time I ever saw real FBI.

All’s well that ends well, right? Scared the hell out of me though. Gullible and greedy. Can happen to anybody, right?