The owner of a Bowling Green business is issuing a warning after her company’s checking account number was used as part of an international lottery scam.

Express Printing owner Kim Oliver said the checks have been sent all over the country. Oliver said it appears that a check she sent as payment to someone was scanned as a prototype.

&#8220It had my account number. It had my signature,” Oliver said. &#8220They used check paper – with the exception of it not having a check number, it looked just like a real check.”

The incident started in December when someone attempted to forge a check from the business for $12,000 to purchase tattoo equipment, she said. The company called to verify if Express Printing had actually sent the check. After this incident a watch was placed on her account with Morgantown Bank & Trust to look for unusual activity.

Then forged checks from the company began being sent to people as an initial payment in a deal where the &#8220fake” check is deposited into the receiver’s account, who is then asked to send a check for taxes to a foreign group on the promise of receiving the rest of their winnings – all before the fake check goes through the bank and is found to be fake.

In this case, United Pacific Lottery was promising people a $250,000 payment, Oliver said.

&#8220In the last two days I’ve gotten at least four dozen calls about the checks and my bank has received just as many,” Oliver said. &#8220I thank goodness my bank has not let any of the checks go anywhere, taking money out of my account.”

She has been working with an agent from the U.S. Secret Service. She forwards all information she receives about the checks to him.

Both the Bowling Green Police Department and Kentucky State Police said there isn’t anything they can do because the group forging the checks was in another country, Oliver said.

&#8220This whole situation has been a mess. I’ve had to close that account, cut up all my old checks and get new checks,” she said.

City police Officer Barry Pruitt and state police Trooper Todd Holder said this the first time a local business’ checks have been used as part of a lottery scam.

Jurisdictional issues are the reason these cases are tough to prosecute or investigate locally, Holder said. State agencies don’t typically work with law enforcement in other countries.

There is a lot of work in solving these kind of cases, said city police Officer Jerry Corbitt. It would take a significant amount of work and would have to be a joint investigation with a foreign agency.

Oliver said based on the calls she’s received, the people sending the checks seem to target older people or those on a limited income.

She wonders how many people’s banks have accepted the checks, and people have sent the money to the forgers, she said.

Oliver said she has received phone calls from people asking about the checks who have become upset with her when she told them it was a scam. Some even told her they were going to call the Better Business Bureau about her business.

The BBB already knows about the situation and has been sending e-mails to businesses to warn that it could happen to them.

These kind of cases are happening more and more with business’ checks being forged, said Reanna Smith, communications director for the Better Business Bureau in Louisville.

In her 1 1/2 years at BBB, Smith said she has known this type of fraud to happen several times and other bureau offices have sent a number of alerts about similar scams.

&#8220It’s a fairly common scam,” she said. &#8220We’ll see more of the lottery and check scams as technology gets better and it gets easier and easier to do.”

The good news is that it shows people are getting smarter by calling to verify a check is good before cashing it, Smith said. Without the efforts of the media and groups like the Better Business Bureau to educate the public, a lot of consumers would just cash the checks, she said.

Unfortunately it is difficult, if not nearly impossible, to catch the forgers, she said.

&#8220The only way we’re going to stop this type of fraud is to educate the public,” Smith said.

People need to remember it’s illegal in the U.S. to play a foreign lottery, she said.

&#8220Also, you have to play to win. So if you didn’t play the lottery, throw it away,” Smith said. &#8220People should also throw away any lottery information away.”

Officers tell people all the time about these kind of scams: If something sounds too good to be true, it is, Corbitt said.

– For more information about scams or consumer alerts, go to http://www.bbb.org.