By RYAN SIBLEY
Observer Staff
OCT. 4, 2007

The United States Postal Service announced today a nationwide consumer protection program to educate consumers about check fraud and to alert criminals in other countries that they will be extradited and prosecuted for crimes committed on Americans through the mail.

The USPS has been working with the Justice Department and law enforcement agencies from The Netherlands, Canada, and Nigeria to enforce a global crackdown on crime rings that use the Internet and the mail as a way to trick consumers into cashing phony checks.

According to Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher, the efforts so far have been successful .

Postmaster General John E. Potter said that they’ve “intercepted more than 500,000 fake checks, totaling more than $2.1 billion in value from coming into the U.S. and victimizing our citizens.”

Potter said, “many of these fake checks scams try using the mail as a silent partner, as a link between the victim and the operator of the illegal schemes.” That is why, according to Potter, the USPS has taken such a large role in carrying out the plan to wipe the globe of such scams.

All three countries present at the press conference today have helped the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to arrest 77 people suspected of counterfeiting checks over the past eight months.

Greg Campbell, inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, said Spain is also a noteworthy partner in helping to arrest criminals in their own country while no reported victims reside there.

Ibrahim Lamorde of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission stressed that Nigeria is not the only country in West Africa that has operating mail fraud crime rings, but it is doing its part to help cure the problem.

The consumer advocacy group National Consumers League has worked with various major financial institutions to spread their belief that the best way to prevent victimization through check fraud is to educate people on their rights and responsibilities as consumers and to help them be aware of situations where they might be taken advantage of.

Since the NCL created a category for check fraud in late 2003, it has become the top telemarketing fraud and second most common internet fraud reported to the organization according to Susan Grant, vice president of NCL.

The Postal Inspection Service has worked with financial institutions and consumer advocacy groups to form the Alliance for Consumer Fraud Awareness. A series of television, Internet, and print ads will be used to alert consumers to the dangers of check fraud. A Web site was also created by NCL to promote education on check fraud.

The Postmaster General added to the importance of educating the public by offering the slogan “don’t get faked out” as words to live by when people receive questionable checks in the mail.

The consumer education website to protect against check fraud is fakechecks.org