1. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

2. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Financial Fraud
Devise a plan to protect your personal financial information
Preview the directions with the students. Remind students that you are the ultimate judge who determines if an online resource is appropriate or not.
Review your desired format for citing websites with students. Set the timer for three minutes and let them begin. To save time, you can have students bookmark websites they find. (If you have a Smart Board/LCD projector, and a school or Twitter account, you can have students tweet or the links to you.)
When the designated time is up, have students one by one share a resource, creating a master list. Be sure to review each site as it is mentioned and make a quick judgment as to whether or not it counts for the contest and master list. Tally the student or team with the greatest number of valid sites/online resources and declare the winner!
RESOURCES: Consider reviewing or sharing information available from the National Association for Media Literacy Education designed to guide consumers through the media-vetting process. At find a free resource for educators, “This is Media.” Use the video and vetting questions to spark conversation about media, credibility, and privacy in a digital age.
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

3. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Preview
Today we will answer these questions:
What are common scams?
How can I protect my personal financial information?
What do I do if I’m a victim of a scam or if someone gets into my bank account without my permission?
Use what you learn today to devise a plan to protect your personal financial information.
Transition into the lesson by telling the students that they will learn strategies to protect personal financial information. Preview the Learning Outcomes in the Student Learning Plan. By the end of this lesson, the students should be able to devise a plan to protect personal account information.
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

4. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Uncover Check Fraud
Common fake check scams:
Sudden riches: Wire money to collect winnings.
Foreign business offers: Send money to accept a job or business offer.
Work-at-home: Cash checks; send cash to “employer.”
Overpayments: Claim that check is overpayment; request that excess be returned.
Rental schemes: Receive check to cover shipping for move from out of the country; request overpayment paid to another party.
Love losses: Request for travel money to visit “loved one.”
Source:
Student Guide, page 8
Introduce the students to common fake check scams. (Note: This slide shows common scams listed on website. Additional details can be found at this site.)
Sudden riches: Wire money to collect winnings. Notice of inherited money or lottery winnings but must send money to get winnings.
Foreign business offers: Offer extended for job or investment opportunity but need to send money to get more information.
Work-at-home: Job is to cash checks and send cash to “employer.”
Overpayments: Claim of overpayment and request return of excess.
Rental schemes: Claim to be moving from outside country and send check that exceeds costs; then request that excess be sent to another party.
Love losses: Money requested in advance to cover travel expenses to visit “loved one.”
Stress the value of confirming that a check is valid before accepting it as payment. A check can be unacceptable due to errors or because information is unintentionally omitted. Point out to students the value of being wary about payment offers that are too good to be true. When they do receive checks for a business transaction, they should look over the check to ensure the information is accurate and acceptable. Reference page 8 in the Student Guide to review the information found on a check.
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

5. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Check Terminology
Post-date: To write a future date on the check.
Drawee: The financial institution holding the funds.
Drawn: To withdraw money from the checking account.
Third-party check: A check that is endorsed once and then being cashed or deposited by a second endorser.
Distribute the Is the Check Valid? task, and arrange for student to work in pairs or small groups to complete the task. Tell the students how much time they have (3-5 minutes) to decide if the check represented in each of the 15 circumstances is legal (valid), illegal (not valid) or legal but just a bad idea. NOTE: This slide introduces terms that may be unfamiliar to students. Preview the terms and definitions before students start the task.
As a class, survey how many students answered “legal,” “illegal,” or “bad idea” for each circumstance before revealing each answer.
EXTENSION:
Research current laws, regulations, and agencies relating to checks, check processing and the legality of writing and cashing checks.
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

6. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Help for Consumers
Share what you find out about online help:
Name of Organization and website URL
Purpose of the site (1 sentence)
Who benefits most from site information
Summary of resources or services on site
Two pieces of advice to deter or detect fraud
How to defend or get help if a fraud victim
Student Guide, pages 35-36
Assign students to, individually or with a partner, research a specific website that addresses scams or fraud related to banking or shopping. Arrange for the students/partners to report back to class what they learned and how the information on the site can be useful to consumers. If more than one person is on the team, divide up the questions accordingly.
Have students document their findings on paper, through a class publication, or electronically, such as by posting it to a school class or wiki website.
NOTE: A list of potential resource websites is provided in the Teacher Lesson Plan.
Have students present their findings to the rest of the class in one- to two-minute presentations, in particular to share the source, tips to deter or detect fraud, and steps to take if ever a victim of fraud. Challenge the students to make their presentations short by giving only the essential information that would be most helpful to their classmates. This information will be useful when the students complete Activity 5.8 later in the lesson.
EXTENSION: Have students watch the various National Consumer League ”Fake Out” videos. Then see if the students can create their own, trying to fake out other students or community members into falling for a common scam. (
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

7. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Deal With Deception
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recommends: Deter misuse of your information Detect when you have a problem Defend yourself from loses
If these students completed Lesson 2-5: Identity Theft, ask them to recall what they learned about Deter and Defend actions.
Distribute the deception scenarios so students can complete Activity 5.8: Deal With Deception. Arrange for students to work independently or in partners. As time allows, have the students take turns sharing responses as the rest of the class affirms or disputes the recommended actions based on what they learned from the research activity.
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

8. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Challenge
Scam Prevention Action Plan Create an action plan to outline ways your family can avoid scams, fraud, and theft of financial information.
My Family’s Scam Prevention Action Plan
Internet precautions
Cell phone precautions
Portable technology precautions (laptop, tablet computers, mobile devices)
Financial account precautions
Personal information precautions
Student Guide, page 39
Assign the students to independently complete Challenge 5-D: Scam Action Plan.
NOTES: Suggest that students add additional categories and/or list more than three precautions for any given category.
EXAMPLE:
My Family’s Scam Action Plan:
1. Internet precautions
2. Cell phone precautions
3. Portable technology precautions (laptop, tablet computers, mobile devices)
4. Financial account precautions
5. Personal information precautions
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

9. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
Reflection
What is one action step can you take to better protect yourself against fraud?
Ask the students to reflect on what they can start to do now to better protect themselves against fraud.
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education | Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |

10. High School Financial Planning Program
Lesson 5-3: Financial Fraud
©2014 National Endowment for Financial Education |