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Can I be arrested for not returning money someone else deposited in my bank account?

Personal Finance & Money Asked by Luaa on February 26, 2021

Someone sent me a check willingly for $4800 and now they want it back because I refused to send it to other people after it was sent in fear of me being involved in crime. And said I scammed them and said the FBI will find me and I will be arrested if I don’t give it back. But i don’t understand. They put it in directly to my account with a check using my info.

2 Answers

This is simply a variant of deposit scams. No, you will not be arrested as this is just part of social engineered blackmail by the scanner.

However, this an indication of identity theft, you must report the incident to the bank immediately (don't delay, call today). Check whether it is necessary to file a police report or whether the bank anti-fraud department will take care of the rest.

This is what practice in the scammer cookbook:

  1. Get victims account information and phone number from data stolen from somewhere.
  2. Bank in a cheque with X amount to the victim account, this usually took 2 days to clear
  3. Call the victim ASAP, choose any script(from a dozen) to make victim believing it and make them return the money by bank-in equal amount into some other account, etc.
  4. The scammer calls the bank to retract the cheque ASAP before the funds are cleared.

The best version of the scam may even go into the extent that without banking any cheque. Since scammers already have the victims bank information, they just make a social engineering call to carry out the scam. I.e. most of the time victim will call the fake bank number given by the scammers and falls right into the trap.

Correct answer by mootmoot on February 26, 2021

To answer your question: No, you will not be arrested for this under any circumstances.

If this had just been a genuine mistake (someone sent a cheque to the wrong address, and you cashed it), in the very worst case they would take you to court, and a judge would order you to pay the money back. In that case, the person's identity would be known to the court, so they would not have any chance to do any scam.

As you describe it, chances are 99.999999% that this is a scam. The checque you received is most likely from someone else's account; in a few weeks your bank will figure it out, the money will be gone, and they can't call the police on you because it is obvious that they are scamming.

If you have contact with the scammer again, tell them that the money is gone. The bank has removed it from your account. You can make it a bit more believable, saying you spent $500 of it and now you don't know how to replace it, and it's all their fault.

Answered by gnasher729 on February 26, 2021

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