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 $5,000 a piece. However, neither man has received a check.
The ads passed prior screening by the newspaper’s advertising department.
“A lot of times we can tell what’s a scam just by looking, but sometimes we have to call to find out what’s going on,” Carol Cutshall, director of advertising, said. “We 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.”
Rourke, 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.
Tanner, of McAlevys Fort, forwarded over $700 across the northern border to secure a loan to buy a home for his family.
Transactions in both cases were conducted via Western Union.
In the process, Tanner gave the alleged fraudsters his credit card number and copies of his driver’s license, Social Security card, bank statements and car title — 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.
Lance 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.
West said he has filed several fraud reports like Tanner’s, and that “the list keeps growing and growing.” West estimated it will cost the Ohio bank upwards of $10,000 to shut down the scam operation.
“We’re not terribly exposed,” West said. “But for all of the people being victimized, it’s 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.”
The ad space was paid for by Lynne D. Haraway of 82 Clarence Hill Road in Dover, Del., phone number 866-205-7328.
Deputy Detective Case of the Dover City Police Department said the address does not exist.
“They’re trying to make this scam appear like a U.S. operation, but they’re insulated in Canada, making it hard to get them,” Case said.
The phone number, as discovered by The Daily News, is connected to the scam operation’s office in Toronto — far from that bogus road in Delaware.
The scam
The scam was first reported to The Daily News by Tanner’s 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 — good credit, bad credit, no credit or trying to build credit.
The younger Tanner called the phone number listed in the ad, and forwarded “personal information usually required to apply for a loan or credit card.” A representative of the “fraudulent” bank told Tanner he would receive a call within 72 hours as to whether or not he was approved for the loan.
One 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’s license, Social Security card and proof of residency, or the cover sheet of his bank statement, which he did.
Tanner was faxed papers back ordering a payment of $889 to secure the loan, but Tanner refused.
Instead, he called the “fraudulent” bank to negotiate collateral. Both parties agreed copies of Tanner’s two car titles would be sufficient. Tanner faxed the titles and waited for approval from the “collateral department.”
Then, a representative from the “fraudulent” bank called Tanner to tell him the check was on its way to McAlevys Fort.
This 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’s word, the fax said the loan check would not be sent out until the bank received the import tax payment.
Tanner 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’s identity and funds to initiate more scams, according to West.
Tanner was set to receive the loan Monday, Feb. 21, but the check did not arrive.
Because it was Presidents Day, Tanner waited until Tuesday.
Still, no loan.
Tanner called the “fraudulent” 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.
“They told me the lender wouldn’t say what the problem was,” Tanner said.
‘Fishy’
“That’s when things really got fishy,” said Tanner’s father, who called to “get some answers.”
“They told me the lender thinks my son is going to take off with the $5,000,” the father said. “They wanted two payments of $156 on the loan upfront. I told the lady we should just cancel the transaction, and she said she’d send it over to her refund department to send out a refund check.”
Tanner’s father was given false answers, and Tanner never received a loan check or a refund check.
So, the father and son conducted their own research, accessing the “fraudulent” bank’s Web site at www.libsavbank.com, leading them to perform a search for “Liberty Savings Bank” that returned the Web address for the Liberty Savings Bank of Ohio. On the Ohio bank’s Web site, Tanner found a fraud alert and contact information for West, the legitimate bank’s security director.
The 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.
“When I talked to the FBI, they said they’re already investigating case files on this scam, but they can’t do anything to these people because they’re in Canada,” Tanner said.
Special agent Gerri Williams, media spokesperson for the FBI, said Tanner’s case and similar cases appear to be linked to international fraud rings.
“Our office in Toronto is very much involved in telemarketing and international fraud,” Williams said. “Unfortunately, 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.”
Williams told The Daily News that the FBI “strongly discourages people from sending money via Western Union to anyone they do not know.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Read The Daily Herald tomorrow for more developments in the Tanner story, plus a reporter’s experience with the suspect bank .)
