him the checks he had deposited had actually been returned , and that he owed the bank all the money he had withdrawn . Smith has not heard from his business partner since and does n't even know who she really is . He still owes his bank money , is unemployed and does n't know what action the bank might take against him . What happened to Smith is one example of a wide range of fake check scams carried out in the United States every year . A Consumer Federation of America survey estimates that 1.3 million Americans have been the victim of a fake check scam , with an average loss of $ 3,000 to $ 4,000 per consumer . The most common scams are fake sweepstakes or lotteries , phony government sponsored grants and fraudulent work-at-home opportunities , the survey says . The scams follow the pattern of the so-called Nigerian Internet scams , which often involve accepting transfers of money that become obviously phony when it 's too late . On Wednesday , the Consumer Federation launched a campaign to combat check scams . Many consumers do n't know they are responsible if they deposit
WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Thousands of Americans learn a painful lesson in banking every day : Waiting for a check to clear and then getting access to the money from a bank does n't mean the check has really cleared . When Harry Smith , of New York , responded to an ad on Craigslist for an office assistant , a woman e-mailed him and said her British company was starting to sell its product in the United States , but was having trouble with dealing with checks from customers . Smith said the woman needed someone to collect the checks and then send the money to her company . It was a commission job -- deposit the checks , wait for the funds to become available at his bank , then send cash to her , minus 10 percent for Smith . After Smith checked out what seemed like a legitimate company on the Internet , he started receiving checks totaling several thousand dollars and deposited them in his account . When his bank released the funds , he sent cash to an address outside the country . But after a few weeks , Smith 's bank notified