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ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014\u00a0A Rochester stylist thought he was about to land the job of a lifetime \u2014 working with actor Leon Robinson from The Five Heartbeats. Instead, it turned out to be a fake check scam.<\/p>\n
Vandell Marshall says it all began at a fraternity convention in Florida. He met Robinson in Tampa after the actor was inducted into their fraternity \u2014 and at the airport, Marshall saw his chance to pitch himself as a stylist.<\/p>\n
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<\/center> \u201cI\u2019m taking it as this is my my opportunity to just sell me, you know, as a stylist. You know, I did that, and he was like, hit him up,\u201d said Marshall.<\/p>\n Soon after, Marshall says he connected with Leon on Facebook, believing he was chatting directly with the star.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought I was talking to the actor Leon, the person I just saw. This person, since July, has held this conversation with me as Leon\u2019s assistant,\u201d Marshall expressed.<\/p>\n The so-called assistant promised Marshall styling work for a charity event.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m ecstatic! I thought this would be the break I\u2019ve been waiting for,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n Marshall sent over designs, gave his address \u2014 and then the checks started showing up.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m thinking, ‘oh, OK, they\u2019re going to mail an actual contract.’ Instead, I got a bunch of checks. $14,500, $4,900, $8,500 and $5200,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey weren\u2019t certified bank checks; they were handwritten. My name was right on the envelope, but my name is spelled wrong on the checks. So I am like, somebody is trying to scam me and it\u2019s not working,\u201d Marshall added.<\/p>\n Then came the biggest red flag \u2014 an \u201caccountant\u201d calling on WhatsApp, pressuring Marshall to deposit money into multiple accounts. When he checked the return address, it traced back to an Extended Stay Hotel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guy asked me if I had deposited the checks? … No, you want them back? And I haven\u2019t heard from him since,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n The Federal Trade Commission reports that fake check scams cost consumers more than $28 million in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t access the funds if you think it\u2019s suspicious, because if you do and you use those funds and the check comes back bad, you\u2019re responsible for it,\u201d said Ernie Laroche, manager of financial security at ESL Federal Credit Union.<\/p>\n Bank experts say even if a check looks real, it can still bounce days later.<\/p>\n \u201cDepending on the transactions you\u2019ve had on your account before, they\u2019ll go through the eye test. Does it look like it\u2019s a real check? Does it not look like a real check? And then it would deposit it,\u201d Laroche explained.<\/p>\n Marshall says he never cashed the checks, but knows others might not be as cautious.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough that money would have solved a lot of my bills. But yeah, not like that. If it\u2019s too good to be true, no matter how bad you need the finances, check first,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n Under New York law, knowingly cashing or using a forged check can result in criminal charges, from misdemeanor to felony offenses.<\/p>\n Marshall eventually spoke with the real Leon Robinson, who confirmed scammers were using his name. Unfortunately, Marshall never got his designs seen by the actor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumlocalnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014\u00a0A Rochester stylist thought he was about to land the job of a lifetime \u2014 working with actor Leon Robinson from The Five Heartbeats. Instead, it turned out to be a fake check scam. Vandell Marshall says it all began at a fraternity convention in Florida. He met Robinson in Tampa after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2062648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[93498,21738,349123,356692,384897,71501],"class_list":["post-2062647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-app-public-safety","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-rochester","tag-sergio-cruel","tag-vod"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Rochester-stylist-targeted-in-celebrity-fake-check-scam.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2062649,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062647\/revisions\/2062649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2062648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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