The federal authorities are charging twenty-one Romanian fraudsters, who scammed a lot of people in second chance auction scams. According to the federal authorities, the scam was active for about three years and a lot of the victims lived in the Chicago area.

From the article, it was one of the (now) notorious second-chance scams, where a person is given a second chance to win an auction and asked to wire money to a distant locale (in this instance Romania).

Of course, once the money is wired, the person who sent it, never receives “fair value” for their hard-earned money. Please note that wiring money is a “common ploy” in all sorts of Internet scams. I would take a deep breath, when asked to wire money on a transaction (normally overseas) that seems a little “too good to be true.”

In this instance, the federal authorities are asking for people, who think they might have been victims to come forward:

Anyone who believes they may have been a victim may e-mail inquiries to usailn.victim.witness@usdoj.gov. Include your name, address, phone number, 10-digit Western Union Money Transfer Control Number, amount transmitted, date funds were provided and the name of the individual to whom the funds were sent. Victims may also call a toll-free hotline number for updates about the case – (866) 364-2621.

Second chance scams have been active on auction site - you can read all about them on Google, here.

Western Union has a page warning people about wiring money to people they don’t really know, here.

I read about this on CBS2chicago.com, who has more details on this story, here.