Bank Draft Scam - Received Amount in excess of what was expected

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Only wondering if anyone has seen any scams in relation to bank drafts.

I cannot work out what the person who might be responsible for this scam would gain, details are below:

Today I received a letter which was posted from Germany, it was addressed to me & contained a bank draft for €3,000.

There was no cover letter or anything else to explain who sent this and why.

It was made out to 'Pay' me, the details were typed in rather than handwritten & it was an AIB euro demand draft issued from 96 Clanbrassil Dundalk Co Couth.

The Co Couth is an obvious issue and on the right side it says 'presigned'.

I realise this is a scam but I don't understand what they can gain from me as I will do nothing about it. There was no request for any information from me.

I will bring it to my local AIB bank to bring it to their attention.

The only other thing that might be relevant is we have a holiday home and a few weeks ago someone requested to book it for 2 weeks for €900 and said that they posted a bank draft to us. The only information issued to this person was my name & address & obviously they would see the email address that I sent the response from. I did not share our bank details.
 
The scam is that they "suddenly realise their terrible mistake" in paying you €3,000 instead of €900 and request an emergency refund by EFT of €2,100. If you're stupid enough to pay it, the bank draft then bounces leaving you out of pocket. More here:

[broken link removed]

You should get onto the Gardaí while there's still a chance to catch the scammers.
 
Thanks @dub_nerd for the response and the link.

I replied twice to the person claiming that they were booking our house for those dates to say we have not received the draft a few weeks ago. I have not received any response.

Should they reply then I will not be replying.

I will contact the Gardai whilst it is still an active scam.
 
The Bank will confirm the draft is worthless, I had one a few years back drawn on a uk bank, it was very convincing but fake.
 
The Bank will confirm the draft is worthless, I had one a few years back drawn on a uk bank, it was very convincing but fake.

I wonder are the banks getting better at this? Bank draft fraud was costing 10s of millions per annum up to a few years ago as it took the banks initially confirmed all was in order and released funds to the costumers account only to look for it back days later when they realised the drafts weren't valid.

Garda advice:
When selling high-value goods and services over the internet be wary of cheques/drafts received for a sum in excess of the agreed amount. Fraudsters may claim that this extra money is to pay a handling agent or to cover shipping costs. Do not transfer funds from your own account in order to refund the ‘surplus’ money. Do not release high-value cash or goods until you are quite certain that the cheque or draft received by you has been paid. Bring such cheques or drafts to the attention of your bank before lodging. Report any fraudulent activity to your local Garda/Police station
 
I wonder are the banks getting better at this
Without getting into too much detail, not really. But they have stopped automatically giving cleared funds unless it's their own draft, so the banks losses are less.

The people who undertake these scams exploit 2 weaknesses:
1. People mistakenly think a draft is as good as cash.
2. in the vast majority of cases, the physical draft has to be transferred to the branch it was drawn on to be cleared, so there is a delay in finding it's a scam.

Say if you received a bank draft drawn in a French bank. It will take at least 10 working days to clear.
 
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I wonder are the banks getting better at this?

To be fair it is not the Banks fault, the baddies are getting better at constructing and presenting paperwork that strongly resembles bank drafts including holographs and other anti-fraud measures, it will always be this way for so long as bank drafts are required by customers.

The Garda advice is good and if it looks too good to be true well it normally is, a healthy scepticism helps.
 
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