Just saw a story about how the San Francisco Police Department received a very realistic looking check from a Canadian company and addressed to one Inspector Harry Callahan. You’d be amazed how many people still fall for this scam that has been around for years – someone you’ve never heard of sends you a check out of the blue with an elaborate story – possibly a businessman opening a new office in your country or you’ve just won the lottery.

All you’re required to do to complete this windfall is lodge the check, often a certified check, in your personal bank account, and send back a small amount (often by wire transfer) to cover things like fees and taxes and the rest is yours to keep. But in every case, any victims who do fall for the scam and pay the fee later find that the check bounces, they don’t get paid anything, and they’re out the fee they just transferred.

In some cases victims have lost up to $100,000 on the scam and the Post Office claims the average loss per victim is around $3,500.

One of the scams even made it to an episode of Judge Judy, and I’ve seen numerous blogs where victims of this very obvious scam actually blame the banks for spoiling the deal by not paying up on a fake check.

Back to Dirty Harry. Apparently the scammers sent a check for $59,000 to the North Beach office of the San Francisco Police Department, and addressed to Inspector Harry Callahan. Apparently the thieves didn’t know the Inspector was the fictional movie character Dirty Harry played by Clint Eastwood.

And when someone from the police department actually called the Canadian businessman named as the sender of the check, the scam artist seemed completely unaware of the existence of Dirty Harry, real or fictional.

Makes me wonder who’s dumber – the thieves or the greedy victims who fall for a scam so hot it glows.

But in case you’re still hoping, these offers are all fakes, there’s no stranger offering you free money simply for returning a portion of it, and no, sorry, you didn’t win the Nigerian lottery. Come on folks, a little help?