My father sent me a link to a California Bar Journal article about check scams targeting lawyers.

Unlike the ones targeting average folks, these have been for 6 figure amounts and use wire transfers rather than Western Union, but the premise is the same. The scammer contacts a lawyer, saying they need a representative in the U.S. to help them collect a debt. A contract is signed, then the knowledge that a lawyer in the U.S. was hired seems to have scared the debtor into paying up and the lawyer receives a cashier's check for the amount. They deposit the check in their client trust account, deduct their agreed-upon fee, and wire the rest to the client. But the check is bogus.

It's the same thing being done to job seekers like you, but with bigger numbers.

I know it's hard to feel bad for lawyers. I'm not asking you to. I'm posting this for the people who have posted comments or written to me privately to say they got taken in and they feel so stupid. I'm posting to show that even lawyers who deal with exactly this type of situation have been taken in by these forged check scams. I'm not going to say not to feel bad, because if you're out 3 or 5 grand, you're going to feel pretty bad. Just don't feel stupid for being taken in. It was an expensive mistake, but it was a mistake that people who are a lot better trained to avoid it than you have made too. Do what you need to make sure you don't make it again, but don't beat yourself up.

Best of luck to you all.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 1:09 am and is filed under Job Hunting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.