DOes anyone know if we should file an SAR on letters recieved by customers from these lottory winnings where they are asked to cash a check for so much money and then turn around and send a money order for the percentage of the surcharge? The customer is only bringing the letter and check into our bank to see what we think about these letters. If we tell them that these are scams which they already have a feeling they are. The customer just wants to know what they should do with them. Are we to do an SAR on these? :

I see no benefit to filing a SAR in these cases, especially since you have no way to identify the suspect and you are not suffering a loss. All you can do is to educate your customer in the "if its too good to be true..." axiom.

What about if the customer deposits the check(usually w/a hold!)?

Do you then file a SAR once it's confirmed the check is Fake?

And to expand farther, if a SAR is filed, do you use the information the customer has in their letter or do you just mark unknown, thus kicking this to the $25,000 mark?

Per FinCEN guidence, you are not required to file on these "Nigerian" scam letters unless a loss has been sustained.

If the customer deposits a check that turns out to be fake, I would file a SAR if the amount is above $5,000. I would use the information from the customer's letter for your suspect.

The unknown suspect usually happens when you suffer a loss from a forged or counterfeit check. In those instances, you don't know who the suspect is.