We are not certain what is going on here, but it is odd.
BG: DMV in Michigan here. We regularly get FEDEX and UPS delivery opf documents: car titles for vehicles purchased out of state. Sometimes, checks are included. The customer paid the out of state dealership everything, and the dealership cuts a check for our fees and includes it with the paperwork. End BG.
The week after Thanksgiving, one of my clerks asked me if I knew anything about a check that she had run across in the drawer where we keep mailed in paperwork. It was a check for about $5000, made out to an individual. The check was from a pharmaceutical company in Massachusetts, and the individual's address (typed on the check) was in Georgia. We assumed that the check had become detached from the paperwork, but we could not find any accompanying paperwork. I set it to one side, intending to mail it back to the issuing company.
Not one hour later, I receive a UPS mailer. Inside is only a check, made payable to an individual in Michigan for $4500, from a condo complex in Las Vegas. The check form itself is identical to the one I already have, but they are drawn on two different banks. I puzzle over this until I realize that this newest check was returned to us by UPS for being undeliverable (no such address).
This is weird. It is our address, but the name is not us. And since it is handwritten, it is difficult to figure out the name. I call UPS and talk to a rep, who says that they picked up the pachages at our office, but that these 2 were undeliverable. No, you did not pick up the packages here, that I know. I would have seen UPS picking up stuff. I did ask if she could tell me the customer name, since I couldn't read it. She starts to answer, and then puts me on hold for about 5 minutes. When she comes back, she says they are sending a UPS guy to pick up what I have.
Fortunately, when he shows up the next day, it is my regular UPS guy, just back from vacation. He shows me that he has a third returned package, and he says, "What is going on here? You never send anything out." I show him what I have, and he picks them up to turn into UPS investigations.
Then we start receiving bills for all these UPS services. It's obvious from the bills that UPS doesn't know the customer name either. It is two words, and the second one could be: Hay, Hwy, Huy, Hug, Hey. The bills total just under $1000.
And, as of last Wednesday, the bills keep coming, although now I just mark them refused - unknown at this address.
So either the scam is a simple one: how to get UPS services for free. But based on the identical checks from all over, I wonder if there is even more to this. I'll probably never find out.
