Stolen Checks and Identity Theft

Recently, someone in Canada (not Nigeria) stole one of our personal checks, copied it, and started sending them all over the United States as part of a Irish lottery scam. This scam works when people cash the checks, call the number in the letter, and then wire a portion of the checks proceeds to cover "taxes" or other fees. Luckily our bank's fraud department caught on before any money left our account and closed it. However, because the fraudsters apparently live in Canada, only the US Postal Inspector can assist us at this point because its beyond our bank's jurisdiction

We have been fielding numerous daily phone calls from "lucky" recipients and check cashing stations asking if the check is legit. Now, in the latest wave of mailings, they've changed the title of the letter Eric & Carolynn Gockel Productions and Eric & Carolynn Gockel Secret Shopper, further damaging our credibility.

ripoffreport.com: Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

To add fuel to the fire, concerned citizens have been posting their experiences to a website, ripoffreport.com. We have been trying to keep up by posting "rebuttals" on the website trying to explain that the check is a scam and that we had nothing to do with it except having our identity used in this ruse.

I called up the owner of ripoffreport.com, Ed Magedson at (602) 359-4357 asking if he could screen the postings and possibly edit our names and address out since we are victims as well. He refused and offered up to add an 'editors note' at the top of the postings (3 at last count) as long as I could provide some proof that the scam is not originating from us.

We offered up the fraud investigator's phone number at our bank so he could call and confirm for himself, but he declined. At least he didn't ask us for money to remove the posts, altho he jokingly asked for my social security number and bank account number to do a background check. Not funny.

Irreversible Credibility Damage

Our primary concern was getting it fixed on ripoffreport.com so when you do a google search on our names, these ripoff postings won't be the first results. Ed and I then got into a long discussion about search engines and how they keep information online forever, cached, etc. This is true, but by reposting rebuttals on his site using our names again and again while not stopping incoming postings with our names it only perpetuates the problem.

Ed Magedson defended his actions by saying "we're a news engine". Anyone can post whatever they want on ripoffreport.com, there's no fact checking. On some of the older entries on the website, the truth may be exposed but only after dozens of rebuttals later (who has time to read all the way through?).

Did you get one of our checks?

If you're reading this and you have received a letter and check, our apologies for any confusion. You can call LaSalle Bank at (866) 904-7222 and ask for Pat in the fraud department, she can confirm that the checking account has been closed and that we had no part of this scam other than to have our identity and accounts compromised.