Question about roommate scams. Most of them follow the same script which eventually involves sending you a deposit in the form of a money order. They will then begin asking you to perform financial transactions and this where the scam begins. What would happen if one were to deposit the money and cease communication ultimately scamming the scammer. Is this illegal? If so it seems unlikely for the scammer to contact authorities.

The scam is that the money order turns out to be fake, and in 3 to 6 weeks, it gets noticed and the bank takes the funds out of your bank account. So the scammer never gets scammed except for the 40 or 50 cents it took them to fake the document and the postage to send it to you