Someone tried to scam my wife by sending her a check. It was pretty elaborate. This whole thing happened over the course of about 2 weeks.
They contacted her through a babysitter site and said they were moving to our area. They wanted to hire her to sit when they arrive. Seemed legit.
They then said they needed her to meet with an arborist for some trees they wanted to have cut down at the house they bought. The arborist needed to quote the job. My wife then met the arborist at a house that had been for sale.
Then, they asked her to pay the arborist after the work had been done and sent her a check for $1,200 to pay the arborist plus some money for my wife's time.
This set off the alarm bells. We deposited the check and then waited. The bank was surprisingly unhelpful when we called and asked if the check was good. They couldn't/wouldn't tell us if it had finished processing. The money was available in our account, but we knew enough to wait.
The other alarm bell was that the person would only communicate through text. My wife asked to set up a call so they could discuss details, but they were "busy".
I don't know if the arborist was an actual arborist or a scammer. I suspect he was a legit arborist, but who knows.
Eventually, my wife thought to call the realtor listed on the sign at the house. The realtor wouldn't give my wife the name of the person buying the house, but said it didn't match the scammer's name.
As expected, the funds were eventually removed from our account. My wife went to the police, and they told her to close her checking account. I didn't think that was necessary, but she did it just to be safe.
Anyway, I was impressed with the level of detail in this scam. I'm a naturally suspicious person, but I can see where meeting an "arborist" would lend legitimacy to the scam.
My wife felt really bad, but I told her she did everything right and that calling the realtor was a smart move that I hadn't thought of.
ETA: Folks, we were not in danger of being scammed. We were sceptical from the start and just let it play out a while. We were NEVER going to give anyone money unless the check was good, and we were pretty sure the check was no good from the start.
Update: Yes, I now realize the arborist was part of the scam. I just hadn't thought it through to that conclusion. Also, my wife talked to the cops, and they had no interest in catching the scammer. I thought it would have been easy to set up, but the cops didn't seem to care.