An apparent international scam operation that uses small community newspapers to run perceivably false ads has cost two local men hundreds of dollars.
\nDavid Rourke, 47, and Dan Tanner, 27, each responded to an advertisement for Liberty Savings Bank, published both in The Daily News and The Daily Herald, hoping to be granted loans of $5,000 a piece. However, neither man has received a check.
\nThe ads passed prior screening by the newspaper\u2019s advertising department.
\n\u201cA lot of times we can tell what\u2019s a scam just by looking, but sometimes we have to call to find out what\u2019s going on,\u201d Carol Cutshall, director of advertising, said. \u201cWe checked the Liberty Savings Bank Web site listed on the ad, and it existed, so we figured it was OK. Most of the scams come through just as phone numbers promising help for people with bad credit, and we ditch them.\u201d
\nRourke, of Wayne Township, wired approximately $500 in fees to Toronto, Canada on Feb. 26, according to state police at Lewistown. Attempts by The Daily News to contact Rourke were unsuccessful.
\nTanner, of McAlevys Fort, forwarded over $700 across the northern border to secure a loan to buy a home for his family.
\nTransactions in both cases were conducted via Western Union.
\nIn the process, Tanner gave the alleged fraudsters his credit card number and copies of his driver\u2019s license, Social Security card, bank statements and car title \u2014 information that will supposedly be used by scam artists to purchase more space for other ads in small community newspapers nationwide, according to a bank spokesman.
\nLance West, corporate security director at Liberty Savings Bank of Dayton, Ohio, is working with a Toronto law firm to crackdown on alleged scam artists, who are believed to be operating out of Canada. The law firm was referred to West by a bank fraud investigator in Alabama.
\nWest said he has filed several fraud reports like Tanner\u2019s, and that \u201cthe list keeps growing and growing.\u201d West estimated it will cost the Ohio bank upwards of $10,000 to shut down the scam operation.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not terribly exposed,\u201d West said. \u201cBut for all of the people being victimized, it\u2019s terrible. Some people sent money in, and for them that means $600 forever gone. I hate to see innocent people lose money. The worst part is there are more cases like this, no doubt in my mind.\u201d
\nThe ad space was paid for by Lynne D. Haraway of 82 Clarence Hill Road in Dover, Del., phone number 866-205-7328.
\nDeputy Detective Case of the Dover City Police Department said the address does not exist.
\n\u201cThey\u2019re trying to make this scam appear like a U.S. operation, but they\u2019re insulated in Canada, making it hard to get them,\u201d Case said.
\nThe phone number, as discovered by The Daily News, is connected to the scam operation\u2019s office in Toronto \u2014 far from that bogus road in Delaware.
\nThe scam
\nThe scam was first reported to The Daily News by Tanner\u2019s father, Dan Sr., who said his son learned about the loan opportunity in an ad printed in the newspaper Feb. 7. The ad claimed that a minimum loan of $5,000 could be granted to anyone over 18 with a steady source of income \u2014 good credit, bad credit, no credit or trying to build credit.
\nThe younger Tanner called the phone number listed in the ad, and forwarded \u201cpersonal information usually required to apply for a loan or credit card.\u201d A representative of the \u201cfraudulent\u201d bank told Tanner he would receive a call within 72 hours as to whether or not he was approved for the loan.
\nOne week later, Tanner received a call from a woman who said he passed a credit check. The loan would be his. All Tanner had to do was fax copies of his driver\u2019s license, Social Security card and proof of residency, or the cover sheet of his bank statement, which he did.
\nTanner was faxed papers back ordering a payment of $889 to secure the loan, but Tanner refused.
\nInstead, he called the \u201cfraudulent\u201d bank to negotiate collateral. Both parties agreed copies of Tanner\u2019s two car titles would be sufficient. Tanner faxed the titles and waited for approval from the \u201ccollateral department.\u201d
\nThen, a representative from the \u201cfraudulent\u201d bank called Tanner to tell him the check was on its way to McAlevys Fort.
\nThis call was followed by another fax ordering a $665 import tax to be paid via Western Union to protect Tanner from being accused of money laundering, according to his father. Contrary to the representative\u2019s word, the fax said the loan check would not be sent out until the bank received the import tax payment.
\nTanner sent the money via Western Union as requested by the scam artists, who at this point had acquired all they would need to use Tanner\u2019s identity and funds to initiate more scams, according to West.
\nTanner was set to receive the loan Monday, Feb. 21, but the check did not arrive.
\nBecause it was Presidents Day, Tanner waited until Tuesday.
\nStill, no loan.
\nTanner called the \u201cfraudulent\u201d bank. He was told there was a problem with the credit report they did not see before, and the lender was not going to release the money.
\n\u201cThey told me the lender wouldn\u2019t say what the problem was,\u201d Tanner said.
\n\u2018Fishy\u2019
\n\u201cThat\u2019s when things really got fishy,\u201d said Tanner\u2019s father, who called to \u201cget some answers.\u201d
\n\u201cThey told me the lender thinks my son is going to take off with the $5,000,\u201d the father said. \u201cThey wanted two payments of $156 on the loan upfront. I told the lady we should just cancel the transaction, and she said she\u2019d send it over to her refund department to send out a refund check.\u201d
\nTanner\u2019s father was given false answers, and Tanner never received a loan check or a refund check.
\nSo, the father and son conducted their own research, accessing the \u201cfraudulent\u201d bank\u2019s Web site at www.libsavbank.com, leading them to perform a search for \u201cLiberty Savings Bank\u201d that returned the Web address for the Liberty Savings Bank of Ohio. On the Ohio bank\u2019s Web site, Tanner found a fraud alert and contact information for West, the legitimate bank\u2019s security director.
\nThe senior Tanner contacted West, who advised his son to close his checking account and to have identity theft notes placed on personal credit reports. West recommended that Tanner contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation to file a fraud case.
\n\u201cWhen I talked to the FBI, they said they\u2019re already investigating case files on this scam, but they can\u2019t do anything to these people because they\u2019re in Canada,\u201d Tanner said.
\nSpecial agent Gerri Williams, media spokesperson for the FBI, said Tanner\u2019s case and similar cases appear to be linked to international fraud rings.
\n\u201cOur office in Toronto is very much involved in telemarketing and international fraud,\u201d Williams said. \u201cUnfortunately, a large amount of fraud in the United States involves Western Union transactions to various places in Canada, which makes it difficult to trace because people in Canada who receive it leave false identification information.\u201d
\nWilliams told The Daily News that the FBI \u201cstrongly discourages people from sending money via Western Union to anyone they do not know.\u201d
\n(EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: Read The Daily Herald tomorrow for more developments in the Tanner story, plus a reporter\u2019s experience with the suspect bank .) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An apparent international scam operation that uses small community newspapers to run perceivably false ads has cost two local men hundreds of dollars. David Rourke, 47, and Dan Tanner, 27, each responded to an advertisement for Liberty Savings Bank, published both in The Daily News and The Daily Herald, hoping to be granted loans of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}