JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- An offer to cash big checks and keep some of the cash could be a new twist on a common scam, police said after a recent incident in Northeast Florida.

A Jacksonville mother of three, who asked not to be identified, said she was looking for a way to make money from home and was excited when she got an e-mail advertising what she thought was the perfect job.

"It basically said that you're going to be an account payables representative, and people need to have their money and get paid," she said.

The woman said she responded to the e-mail and was told she got the job.

She told Channel 4 a check was later set via FedEx to her home.

"It said cashier's check, Bank of America, with a watermark on the back and everything," she said.

Police said the woman was given a cashier's check for $4,800 along with instructions to cash the check and then send $2,000 to two different people in Nigeria, and that the remaining $800 would be her pay.

However, when she went to the bank, police said a teller noticed the check was a fake.

"In this case, fortunately the bank caught it. You had a very alert teller that knew something was fishy and she caught onto it right away. But had she not caught it, now you are a partner in a particular fraud scheme, and you could be arrested," said Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Ken Jefferson.

JSO said there are many different forms of the same scam, but that there is one rule that applies to them all -- if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.

"If someone presents something to you at no cost to you, don't buy into it. If you're going to get something for nothing -- there are no free lunches -- you're not going to get anything," Jefferson said

The woman involved said she was both embarrassed that she fell for a scam and concerned that someone out there knows too much about her.

"They know my apartment number. They know my driver's license number. They have the account information. With all that information, I'm sure they can get the Social Security number through this somehow, and they have everything," she said.

Police said the woman in this case was fortunate because she did not lose any money and she was not so deeply involved that she would face charges in connection with the scam. They said online scams are difficult to deal with because it's tough to catch people who are overseas when all they have is that person's e-mail address.