We have recently received several "Nigerian Scam" type letters directed to the President and/or CEO of the Bank. Because they are directed at the Bank, it is my understanding that a SAR must be filed. Is this true?

I think there are two levels of response to this kind of situation. First, there are the SAR rules regarding dollar triggers and known or unknown suspects. In this kind of scam, I would follow the rules but err on the side of caution.

I think it could also be useful to call your regulator and/or law enforcement. This sort of activity moves very fast and the early warning to the enforcers helps law enforcement to track patterns. It also helps other institutions be warned before they get hit.

We recently experienced this with a little different twist in that the "Nigerian letter" actually came as an e-mail message to one of our employees. We are a federal savings bank and, per prior correspondence from the OTS on this subject, we contacted the OTS regional office. The OTS told us to report the incident to the Secrect Service and to also file a SAR and send a copy to the OTS. However, when we contacted the Secret Service, they asked that we only forward the e-mail message to them and told us not to file the SAR since there was no actual loss of funds by the person who received the "letter". They said that they receive reports of these Nigerian scam letters by the hundreds and that they can only followup on those where the recipient suffered a monetary loss.

That's exactly the same response we received when an employee received the Nigerian Scam via e-mail.

No wonder the scams are so common! I still think (somewhere there must be an ideal world) that it is worth notifying your regulator and/or the FDIC. They are interested in protecting deposits and bank assets whereas Secret Service is going after the bad guys of the day.

I guess Nigerian fraud must still work, or they wouldn't continue trying it. It's hard, however, to imagine a bank falling for it.

Richard, when you say "falling for it", you mean I shouldn't count on these funds for my retirement? Bummer.

I think there are a number of these spam scams out there and while they may be illegal, they are more a nuisance than a real threat and accordingly don't even get up to the back burner on law enforcement's radar.

They may get more attention if each of us chipped in a buck to law enforcement so they could catch these spammers and get rid of them once and for all.

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Andy Zavoina
Opinions stated are not necessarily that of my employer.

The problem with these letters is they are coming on our fax machines, at least once a week and its the same old story. These "threats" are a dime a dozen and every SAR I've filed brought a FinCen response that nothing was done with it because there was no loss. It just seems a waste of time for something that we all know is a silly scam that we all ignore.
But thanks for the responses. I'll just keep sending FinCen more paper!