Job Scam (I give them Credit...they had me going)

I am a physics tutor. I got emailed by Amber Sanders asking me to tutor her daughter Kimberly who was coming to the united states. We agreed on a price and she said she'd Fedex a check for US$270. A few weeks later I got a fraudulent check that had no water mark, made no sense, and was for ten times that amount, from a guy named John Woelfel in Frisco, Texas. The check was from a company in Washington D.C. called "Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America" which I believe to be a legitimate business. I called them confused and they confirmed that the check was fraudulent. I looked back through the emails from this Amber person and found that information was not consistent pertaining to the supposed arrival dates of her daughter. She asked me if I had received a check she Fedexed and after I told her the only check I got was a fraudulent one and she stopped emailing me. She mentioned her "daughter" being on Facebook so I facebooked "Kim Sanders" from London, UK where she said she was from and there were none that matched a 15 year old high schooler like her daughter supposedly was. She used two email addresses to email me:
1) [email protected]
2) [email protected]

The second is the most recent. The John Woelfel guy exists in the yellow pages as I discovered from googling him. The address the check came from is:
11588 Seaside Lane
Frisco, TX 75035

What a laugh. I got exactly the same e-mail. I've encountered this sort of scam before, so I was not at all surprised when it turned into a deal where I sent them money. I refused to play along any further and ...poof - no more e-mail.My question is where did my name come up?

Welcome here strat10.

I'm glad you recognised the scam. If you have left your e mail address somewhere online, maybe in a guestbook, then the scammers will find it one day. Once they have your e mail address, and got a reply from you, then you can expect more scam e mails.

Welcome to Scamwarners. That scam is usually aimed at people advertising their services on-line. Which isn't the case here or you'd know why you were targeted.
Sending it out to random email addresses makes no sense, but that won't stop some spammers trying it.

I just go contact for the same reason tutoring, same Amber and her husband, and daugther Kimberly this are the email addresses
[email protected]
[email protected]

I got the same email for a math tutor for her daughter kimberly from [email protected] . I thought something seemed a bit fishy and as soon as I said I only accept cash (to see what they would do), they just stopped emailing me. In their first email I saw that they emailed a few other people as well, so I emailed those people and warned them. Definitely trying to scam some money.

Wow, I almost felt into this scammer just last month. She used the same name "Amber Sanders" and her email address is [email protected]. Here is her initial email:

Good Morning there,
How are you doing today and i hope you are having a great week?My husband and I are looking to hire a qualified Computer science tutor for our daughter Kimberly,she is 15yrs old and what we really want for her is just a general brush-up with her in basics programming and desktop publishing and in any areas she might have difficulties with.If you are available and qualified do get back to me with your rates and hopefully an arrangement can be made then.Thanks for your time.
Regards,
Amber.

She even sent it to my university email address. After taking about when and where I will tutor her Kimberley, she wanted to sent me $1550, I'd take $180 for my fee and sent the rest to WU to a travel agent. I did not know it's a scam, so I almost accepted. But I finally refused because it seemed too much responsibility for me to accept this. And I never hear anything from her again. Turns out that I just walked out by luck. Phew!

I was surprised by the email address, and I did a quick search on Google for "Amber Sanders London" and this page came up as the first link! Below are the emails between us:

First email:
From: Amber Sanders <[email protected]>
Good Morning,
How are you doing today and i hope you are having a great week?My husband and I are looking to hire a qualified Physics tutor for our daughter Kimberly,she is 15yrs old and what we really want for her is just a general brush-up with her Physics and in any areas she might have difficulties with.If you are available and qualified do get back to me with your rates and hopefully an arrangement can be made then.Thanks for your time.
Regards,
Amber.

Reply:

Hello Amber,

I'd be glad to help Kimberly with Physics. Please give me your phone number to set an appointment for evaluation.

Thanks,

Amber Reply:

Hello there,
Thanks for your email and I'm delighted to know you are available to tutor my daughter with her lessons,We reside in London(kent),I'm into Real estate and construction work here,My daughter Kimberly will be relocating temporarily to my sister's house in College Park, MD about a week from this date and I'm hoping the lessons can hold there privately in her home but if Kimberly has to meet with you then I guess it's ok still,Can you tell me what your hourly rates are like?What we really want for her is just general brush-up with her Physics and in any areas she might have difficulties with,I would like the lessons to hold three times a week for 1hr eachday of the lessons for a total duration of three weeks in all,how much would that amount to?Again I apologize for my late response,do get back to me on this and we can proceed on arrangements then.
Regards,
Amber.

My reply:
Amber,

I can meet Kimberly at your sister's house in College Park, MD. Let me know when Kimberly is here and we can discuss everything during the evaluation session.

Thanks,
Amber Reply:
Ok sounds good,how much are we looking at for the three weeks duration?
Regards,
Amber.
And the last conversation:
I can only tell you that after the evaluation session.

Well, Amber is still up and running. I've been playing her game now for the past several weeks trying to "arrange things" for little Kimberly. But tonight (I'm usually sound asleep at this time), my brain was busy adding up the miscues and spelling fraud. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The only way in which I can see she got my name is from a list of tutors printed by the county board of ed. I have placed a fraud alert on my accounts and hope it stops there.

Welcome to ScamWarners Chromium5. We do not encourage maintaining contact with scammers because they often have your real life information. Nothing good comes from using your real life email account.

To learn to do this safely, you might want to visit www.419eater.com. We do want people to be safe on the internet.

Well this thread really was helpful. It's about six months from the last post and Ms. Sanders is still going strong about little Kimberly, this time again seeking a Math tutor. This is what saved me from what would definitely have been a very forgettable experience:
1. I am studying at the Ohio State University and had heard that their Math tutors were recently being scammed because their email addresses had gone public.
2. She kept re-stating some line about her daughter needing a "brush up with her Math/Algebra skills".
3. In the email where she explained the whole Western Union plan (duh, I'm not THAT stupid), her last paragraph was about her daughter being excited to meet her new tutor and telling all her friends about it. What kind of 12 year old talks to her friends about a math tutor, and that too in a good way????? She is moving thousands of miles away and this is how she says goodbye to her friends? It kind of creeped me out.
4. I had my doubts about all this, so I tried to search Amber Sanders on Facebook and Google. Facebook did not turn up anyone "into Real Estate" and Google spit back this thread. Thank god the scammer does not have the brains to change their name every time (although the email changes, this time being [email protected] which should also have been a warning. I just thought it must be an old account she created when she was young).
So anyways, I am just reporting the email account and blocking it from my address, but I just hope sincerely that no one else gets scammed by this particularly sloppy scammer.

I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I tutor math. The Amber Scam is still going strong after 2 years, it looks like! I became very suspicious after 'Amber' tried to book tutoring lessons for her daughter. She said that they were moving to Calgary, BC soon (but Calgary is NOT in British Columbia, it is in Alberta! How can you NOT know where you are moving to?!) Plus, all the writing was in bold, and who signs up their kid for 3 weeks of tutoring after moving to a new city?? I looked it up, and indeed, it is a SCAM! Word for word. Even the same email address!

May 1, 2012:
Hello,
Thanks for your email and I'm delighted to know you are available to tutor my daughter with her lessons,We reside in London(Kent),I'm into Real estate and construction work here,My daughter Kimberly will be relocating temporarily to my sister's house in Calgary,BC about a week from this date and I'm hoping the lessons can hold there privately in her home but if Kimberly has to meet with you then I guess it's Ok still,My husband and i think your rates are totally agreeable and we are hoping to work out an arrangement here.What we really want for her is just general brush-up with her Math/Algebra 1 and in any areas she might have difficulties with and she will be coming along with her study books and materials but you can also go ahead and bring any that you think will be helpful too,I would like the lessons to hold two times a week for 1hr each day of the lessons for a total duration of three weeks in all,how much would that amount to?Again I apologize for my late response,do get back to me on this and we can proceed on arrangements then.
Regards,
Amber.


April 30, 2012:
Good Morning there,
How are you doing today and i hope you had a great weekend?My husband and I are looking to hire a qualified Math tutor for our daughter,her name is Kimberly and she is 12yrs old.What we really want for her is just a general brush-up with her Math/Algebra 1 and in any areas she might have difficulties with.If you are available and qualified do get back to me with your rates and hopefully an arrangement can be made then.Thanks for your time.
Regards,
Amber.

Email address: [email protected]

I have seen these before. That is so sick that people try to rip off other people. Thanks for warning us!

Welcome, Mathtutor! I'm glad to hear that you were able to find our info to confirm the scam. Thanks for taking the time to post about your experience, and let us know that the scammer is still using the same info.
Let us know if you have any questions, and please do post any other scam emails you receive! You're likely to be targeted by other scammers if you advertise your services online.

Hello,

I just recently received an e-mail from Amber Sanders as well. I am a math teacher and tutor on the side. The stories that I am reading on here are identical to what she had told me. The e-mail she had been using was [email protected]. I received a check from "Brookside Motorcylce Company" in Tulsa, OK. The bank immediately recognized the check as fraud, thank goodness. I also had received a text from her husband Harry Sanders telling me to check my e-mail that his wife had sent me. His number is (201) 448-7518.

I hope this information can be useful and these people can be caught so no other innocent person has to be scammed!

I am also a teacher and received this email. I received the same one last spring and exchanged a few emails before I smelled a scam. Today, I received the message again. She was looking for a math/algebra tutor for her daughter Kimberly. I was going to respond with a nasty note but decided this scammer wasnt worth my time.

Here is the email she is currently using:

[email protected]