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Home >> Checks/Money Orders >> Checks You Received
Opened Business Account: Accused of Fraud, Legit?
My husband received a check from someone in Canada who wanted to invest in his business. He received all the paperwork with name, address, phone numbers of company/person, and a company check. Believing that it was legitimate, he opened a business account and deposited the check.
The bank said it would take 5 to 10 business days to clear and he said no problem. The bank offered him $100.00 until it cleared, but he declined. He never spent a dime. Six days later he was arrested for fraud. We are baffled; the lawyer is baffled. Why would they arrest the victim? He did nothing wrong.
Is this standard? Is there anything we can do? Our lawyer says this is wrongful, however, he also said that it is almost hopeless to try to go after a fraud in Canada. We do not know what to do. My husband is a completely clean, upstanding citizen. We are desperate! What should we do?!
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 Given the way you've described the matter, it should be relatively easy for your husband to document how he came to have the checks, and any law enforcement professional should be able to recognize this as a scam in which your husband was the target. Your attorney is correct in saying that chasing scammers in Canada is difficult. Occasionally, one hears of a successful U.S. - Canadian cooperative effort to bring one of the fraud artists to justice, but the successes are greatly outnumbered by the numbers of frauds being conducted.
Since there has apparently been no money spent from the checks deposited, it seems to us that no one on this side of the border has yet lost anything. Once the checks bounce (as we are sure they will), the bank will charge them back to the new business account, which your husband should close out after paying any bank fees (unless he can have a "go" at the business without the bogus capital infusion).
Published on BankingQuestions.com 5/30/07
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