This suggest that these are real checks.
If the banks process these checks it would seem that these scammers actually have money in a bank and their money is being used to cover these checks.
How are they managing to scam money if they are giving money away? Are these checks for only a few cents?
The majority of Americans do not have great quantities of cash sitting in their bank accounts for these people to loot.
There must be something to this scam I am missing.
I have received several scam calls from IRS agents. I begin by telling the person calling to F*** themselves. Each time they have returned the greeting in kind and hung up.
Another scam that as been used on me twice is a call from a power company lineman with orders to cut my service. I have used a variation of my IRS greeting with good results. BTW my service was not disconnected.
These scams are always advanced by asking the victim to pay cash at a local wire service station (drug store, etc) to send money to an account number. Once it is gone it is gone forever.
sometimes with cop titles “detective”
Like the OP we had not filed our return yet so this was odd.
We called and were informed that it was indeed a tax refund check, cut against a filed return (Identity theft).
I commented to the guy that it didn't do the thieves much good since the check came to me - he said often it goes to a different address (PO box) put on the return by the perps.
Upshot is, this was prolly a valid check from the government and the OP now gets to jump through the identity theft hoops, plus gets a special ID number from the IRS to validate future returns.
If you deposit a bad check, the bank holds you responsible for the money. Banks don’t check the writer’s bank account for sufficient funds. Only after it is rejected by the writer’s bank does your bank know.
Have the bank check the routing number, and if it is the Treasury, then you need to call the IRS, or Social Security, or whomever, and check for ID theft.
There would have to be an authentic routing number to even get routed to the right clearing house.
Check turned out to be fake. Just informing you.