This is such a common scam that I really think it should be taught in schools.

Whenever you hear someone propose to give you a check in return for you depositing your cash directly somewhere, it is always a scam, always. There is no legitimate reason anyone would ever do this, and I've seen it happen multiple times to multiple people, and even to small charity organizations that almost went bankrupt because of this.

We need some sort of anti-scam class in like high school or something. Just the ability to recognize the most common scams in the world would protect a lot of people.