Day-to-day life demands enough of your hard-earned money: between bills, food costs, and unexpected expenses - sickness, injury, Grandma’s 80th blowout bash … - many people like they have a leak in their checking accounts already.

So scams and schemes that drain your funds without giving you anything in return should be avoided at all costs.

Your best bet for doing so? Educate yourself.

Fake Check Scams

A recent report on msnbc.com revealed that scams involving phony checks are on the rise.

Apparently, these scams involve three main elements: you receive a check in the mail, you’re instructed to cash the check and wire money to someone, and you end up losing a few thousand dollars.

Unfortunately, millions of Americans have already been taken in by these scams, which often seem legitimate. Common tricks scammers use include the following:

• Fake buyer offers: Some checks arrive in response to an ad you’ve placed to sell an item, like a car or a piece of furniture. These may follow an email or letter explaining that the person will send a check for more than your asking amount (RED FLAG!), and ask you to wire the extra money to a third party.
• Fake lottery wins: Other bad checks come as your “prize money” for a lottery game you never played. After depositing the money, you’ll be asked to pay some taxes and fees to collect. Legitimate organizations would never require you to do this.
• Mystery shopper tasks: Yet another scheme involves identifying you as a “mystery shopper” who needs to deposit a check and wire most of it (you’ll keep some for your trouble) from a specific location – ostensibly to evaluate that location’s services.

THESE OFFERS ARE SCAMS

As a basic rule of thumb, never agree to wire money to or for someone you don’t know.

This is serious. In fact, one reason some people turn to filing bankruptcy is because they became victims of scammers. Don't be fooled.

And, while many of us consider ourselves fairly savvy about the scams out there, they can be treacherous because they’re often very clever. Sources indicate that:

• 59 percent of respondents to a poll incorrectly thought that a bank will make sure a check is good before letting you withdraw the money
• 40 percent thought they couldn’t be liable for transactions made after depositing a bad check

In reality, neither of these is true. In fact, even asking whether a check has “cleared” is not enough to make sure you’re safe: “clearing” only means that you have access to the money involved – it has nothing to do with whether or not a check is valid.

Be an active, informed consumer, and know your consumer rights.

People will continue to develop new scams to trick the unsuspecting. The best thing you can do to protect yourself and your hard-earned cash is to learn as much as you can about what’s out there and how to avoid it.