It takes a lot of willpower to tear up a $4,500 check.

That’s exactly what a Jeanerette woman did Thursday.

Before that, Steve Elledge of St. Martinville ignored three checks totaling $122,000. They supposedly were downpayments for his house.

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Both people were targets in a scam operation.

Mary Weeks of Jeanerette said she believed the check and accompanying letter looked suspicious when she opened her mail Thursday. She found out she was right.

“I got this letter from Canada, with a check, telling me I’d won a sweepstakes — $350,000,” Weeks said Thursday afternoon. “Well, I don’t believe in the tooth fairy.”

The accompanying check was in the amount of $4,500 and was supposedly drawn on “Regent’s Bank of New Orleans.” The letter was from “Adam & Reese LLP” of Baton Rouge. The letter explained that the check was issued to to cover “the non-resident service tax” since the winner is not from Canada, said Weeks.

Elledge and his wife are trying to sell a house. That’s how the scam artists targeted them.

“They say they want to buy my house, outright,” Elledge said. “The first check I got was for $26,000 — $20,000 for a down payment and the other $6,000 to pay for travel and expenses for an inspector to come down and look at it.”

Another attempt came via e-mail and was accompanied by a land-mailed check in the amount of $48,000; same with the third. In one of the e-mails, “Gill David” said he had spoken with Mrs. Elledge and agreed on the asking price for the house. The e-mail instructed him to deposit the $48,000 check and “to deduct the down holding payment ($40,000) and send the remaining balance ($8,000) to the inspecting agent for his trip to the States.”

A 12-digit international phone number was included with the e-mail.

All three of Elledge’s checks came from England, he said. All were in a similar brown envelope with similar handwriting, but each was worded a little differently.

Haste was urged “because we are so much in love with your house,” the e-mail stated.

Likewise, Weeks was instructed to deposit the check in her checking account, then send a personal check or money order in the amount of $3,500 — for those “non-resident taxes” — to an address in the letter.

“I guess they included a little extra for my trouble,” she said with a laugh.

Under federal law, banks must make deposited funds available quickly — usually within one to five business days. However, it may take weeks for the forgeries to be discovered.

By the time a fake check bounces, the victims have often accessed their money, and are therefore liable to repay the bank the money they withdrew against the bad check. When the check bounces, the bank deducts the amount that was originally credited to their accounts.

If the funds are insufficient, the bank has no choice but to recover the funds from the victim. Information on Attorney General Charles Foti’s Web site (www.ag.state.la.us) warns that these checks or money orders look like they are from legitimate accounts. The companies and/or banking institutions whose names appear on the check may be real, but a con-artist created the check without the company’s knowledge.

The scam artist often resides outside of the United States, which makes it extremely difficult to catch one, Foti said. “Before I even called the attorney general’s office I knew it was a scam,” Weeks said. “They just confirmed it.”

The attorney general’s fraud and scam hotline number is 1-800-351-4889.

Weeks said she was prompted to call the attorney general’s office because she remembered reading a story in The Daily Iberian a few months back warning of a similar scam.

In fact, Candace Tyler of the Better Business Bureau said these types of scams are commonplace.

“We get calls about sweepstakes winnings daily,” Tyler said.

In addition to warning recipients not to send money, the BBB also tells “callers not to give out any personal information, such as Social Security numbers, account numbers, etc.,” Tyler said. “Once someone gets hold of that information, they’re in.”

Elledge said he called the local sheriff’s office and the FBI. “Neither could do anything about it,” he said.

Acting on her husband’s advice, Weeks had a little fun with the scam artists.

She called one of the numbers listed in the letter and, after a series of prompts and beeps, actually talkied to someone.

“I told him I had deposited their check and asked him what to do next,” she said. “He told me to get a money order (for $3,500) and mail it to them.”

Weeks said she was even told where to go to get the money order with the least amount of trouble.

“I told him, ‘Well, aren’t you a nice little crook. I just got through talking to the attorney general of the state of Louisiana.’” He hung up.