Assistant position on Craigslist

I'm not sure if this is a scam or not but the grammer isn't that good and some sentences written don't make a lot of sense...I'm still waiting for a a second reply but I thought i should post this in case anyone else has recieved something like this. i checked out the guys name and nothing showed up so I don't know maybe it is legit, just not sure.

Hello,

This job is regarding an assistant position,

Running business errands.
Mailing and receiving of packages and letters.
Deal with people at all levels across a multicultural environment
Accounts Payable
Also you will be doing some shopping for me.

I would love to meet up with you to talk about this job but I am currently away on a business trip. There is a test which i will like you to go through because i need a capable Assistant. I am in England now so there will be no interview except for the form you will fill below.

• Have you ever been an Assistant on a job?

• If you have been an Assistant once, how long and was it for a company or an individual?

• Can you communicate effectively and efficiently?

• Are you currently employed?

• What is the name of your present employer and position held?

• Will you be able to run errands 2 hours per day and will be needed 3 days per week?

• Can you be able to meet up with time when needed?

• Do you have any sort of Criminal record?

• Are you Disable or not?

• Level of Education?

• Can you face challenges?

• Are you below or above 18 years?

The pay is $400.00 per Week. regardless of hours worked, but I envisage not more than 12hours in any week. I need your service because I am constantly out of town. I buy small businesses that have financial difficulties and I am trying to start an Art Gallery when I am back in town which will be in October, so this process will be on going till then. I will meet up with you when I return and then we can talk about the possibility of making this long term.

Permit me to test your efficiency and diligence towards this, also to work out your time schedule and fit it to mine. I really need to find the perfect person for this job because I am constantly out of town, I'm confident you can take up the challenge and on the long run we should have a relatively sound working relationship between us. I promise to be a good boss. I am also glad on the commitment in working. Funds will be made available to you in form of check and it will be issued to you including your first week payment $400, am going to email the list of items to get as soon as I compile them all but it will be better to wait till you get the fund before i give you the list .

For me to be able to send the funds to you, I will need your details below such as

Your Full Name:
Your Full Address with apt # (NO P.O BOX)
Your Cell/mobile phone number
Your Home phone number

Once I receive your contact information as requested above I will get back to you with the task you will be handling. Please understand you will be paid for the first week immediately as I have stated in my message above, its important for me to have everything setup before I get back from my trip. Hope I am clear with that.

Let me know if you are interested in working with me and get back to me with the requested details.

Thank you and have a great day!


Derek Antonini

Welcome to Scamwarners, and I'm glad you thought to check this out. It is certainly a scam, as you suspected.
You'd be receiving goods bought with stolen credit card details and forwarding them to the scammer, banking fake checks and sending most of the proceeds on by Western Union, or both. Art galleries are a common feature of this type of scam for some reason.
Can you post his email address please.

I just got the same email that the other person got and something just did not feel right so I checked it out and found this site. The email address for this guy is [email protected].

Welcome to Scamwarners, and thanks for the email address.

I ran into this problem too. This same person has apparently put 4 ads on Craigslist under the names: Derek Antonini, Susan Evans, Mark Erick, and D Troup. I became suspicious because my husband warned me about the job postings possibly being a scam. Then I noticed that two of the jobs had sentences with identical wording. Plus all four jobs the employers were "out of town in other countries at the time". The four email address are: (Derek Antonini) [email protected] ; (Susan Evans) [email protected] ; (Mark Erick) [email protected] ; and (Terry Barnett) [email protected] and [email protected]. Almost got sucked in, and I'm not even a sucker!

That's great to know! He just sent me a new e-mail, saying that he hired me and was going to be sending me a check and a list of items for me to buy. So I thanked him for the oppertunity and asked how was I supposed to know that his listing wasn't a scam. Lol, I prob wont be hearing back from him now! That's the same e-mail address that he sent me as well...thanks for the replies, it's greatly appreciated I have a question though? If they aren't real checks, then how am I supposed to be able to cash them?

Also, if I were recieving stolen goods, what if I I just kept them? I know that's not very ethical but neither is what he's doing and I'm not saying that's what I'm going to do that but I was just curious as to what they would do if that happened?

Here's the second e-mail I recieved from him.
It has an address which how convenient that he's going to be relocating oh and that his webpage is under construction!

Hello Kristen,

How are you doing today, hope all is going on well with you? After a review of your details, I am glad to inform you that the job is now yours.This is my information below

My website is under construction i would have love you to look it up and for your information,all errands concerning the job will be in your location.You won't be dealing with any heavy packages,I will proceed with sending you your first paycheck which you will use for your assignments. I am getting some new arts and art crafts for the gallery I told you I am setting up so you will be getting some arts for me at a art studio around you.

I will let you know as soon as the payment is been sent to you which will be in form of Money Orders or check that can be easily cashed out at your bank.

I will be expecting to hear from you soon.

Do have a nice weekend.

Derek Troup Antonini
227 N Willard St
San Francisco, CA 94118
but will be relocating

www.gtb.com

Also, if I were recieving stolen goods, what if I I just kept them? I know that's not very ethical but neither is what he's doing and I'm not saying that's what I'm going to do that but I was just curious as to what they would do if that happened?

It's illegal too, and either way you are likely to be in trouble. Sooner or later the credit card owner will notice the unauthorised charges, and you will be on record as having received the stolen goods. The scammer is using you to take the blame, while he gets away with it.

There are currently 2 postings on craiglist from this scammer as of todays date. I have reported it to craigslist, and actually applied for their position back in June.I am including communication from them regarding questions I originally had from the job, HOWEVER, this is not just ONE person, but SEVERAL included in this scam...I have seen on the TV, show "20/20" about how these scams are worked out and if you go on the internet for that show, you can learn more about it too

Dear Tina,

I just have a few questions about your business before I submit to you the rest of my personal information.

1. What is the NAME of the company and what do they do?

2. How long have they been in business?

3. Is there a reference on the Better Business Beauru that I can look up regarding your company?

I do not feel comfortable giving you my personal information such as my credit report, without meeting with you in person first for an interview. I very much understand the liabilities you've had with the financial aspect of this regarding the business credit card, as I'm sure you can understand my feelings on this as well and with the society as it is today.

As I have put on my resume that I've e-mailed to you, BOTH my e-mail address, regular address and current phone number are there at your disposal should you want to discuss these matters further and the possibility of my employment at your company.

As I've said before, I very much look forward to hearing back from you and we'll proceed.

Thank you

Sincerely,

Melissa Sanders


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:45:07 -0400
Subject: RE: response to your questions
From: [email protected]
To: xxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com <address details not necessary - Michelle>

How are you, it is wonderful to hear from you

We need you to upload your resume you can do that here

I appreciate you e-mailing us. In case the posting was not clear, the responsibilities of this position are as follows: you will be answering the phone and taking messages whenever applicable, you will be scheduling the company meetings, and running errands for the company for things such as purchasing supplies and making bank deposits (you will be provided with a company car). While you are running errands, you will also be given one of our company credit card(s) for all business purchases.
You seem definitely qualified for our job opening, and more so than the other 16 applicants we received applications from. I would like to take the next step with you. However, before I am able to schedule a formal meeting, my company will require that you acquire a recent credit report. We started this because our company had some bad incidents with prior employees taking advantage of having access to a company credit card.
Our company suggests that you use this company..
http://thiecaey.notlong.com
Once you submit your request for a report Then, you need to email me a phone number that you can be easily reached, and your availability to schedule to arrange an interview.


Personally, I am hoping to fill this position with a new friendly face and am looking forward to your quick response.
Have a fantastic day,
Kind Regards,
Tina



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of the email addresses that they give are not legit. So, I'm glad it didn't go further for me but this scam is a very ORGANIZED BUSINESS for them and a lucritive one at that!

The last email just made this much more clear.

This is not a reshipping or a fake check scam (though there are plenty of those out there, and yes, as you suggested, there is usually more than one person involved in this type of scam, though often the victim will be dealing with a single scammer).

This right here tells us what the scam is all about:

However, before I am able to schedule a formal meeting, my company will require that you acquire a recent credit report. We started this because our company had some bad incidents with prior employees taking advantage of having access to a company credit card.
Our company suggests that you use this company..
http://thiecaey.notlong.com

This is a simple credit report affiliate scam. We have seen many of these. Odds are extremely high that this will once again lead to creditreport.com.

How it works is simple:
-The scammer signs up as an affiliate of credit company, it may happen with other companies, but every one I have seen has always been creditreport.com
-scammer creates bogus website that ultimately redirects to credit company.
-scammer posts fake job ads, or housing for sale/rent ads.
-scammer tells victim he needs to get a credit report, and directs him/her to fake site.
-victim clicks on fake site and follows link to creditreport.com The scammer has set up the site so that if the victim clicks through that fake site, he gets credit for referring the victim.
-victim signs up for free credit report. What victim may or may not realize is that going for the free credit report automatically signs him/her up for credit monitoring at a monthly fee.
-victim gives report or score to scammer. Scammer stalls a bit or then tells victim that job/apartment is no longer available. (Theoretically, if the victim has given the report to the scammer, he can then move on to identity theft, though so far we haven't seen this happen.)
-If victim doesn't cancel credit monitoring service (and many have reported that creditreport.com makes it difficult to successfully cancel)--creditreport.com starts charging victim's credit card for monitoring service.
-if creditreport.com successfully charges victim's card, scammer gets an affiliate fee from creditreport.com - last I checked, it was $24 per person. This is what scammer is after.

So the scammer posts the ads in dozens of advertising sites, then simply sends out scripted responses--and ultimately pulls in thousands of dollars for very little work.

This is the email I recieved and I've been doing some looking around and found this website and got reading this post and BAM there is the guys name Mark Erick on the list for scams. I feel so stupid right now....... I sent him my resume so I'm freaking out a little. I thought the job was for a local office here but I was wrong. Is there anything that I can do to report this? I'm so pissed right now. His email address is [email protected].

Hello Applicant,


Thanks for applying for the post, I quite I appreciate it. I received and read your e-mail and it's reasonable and acceptable. So I will give this a go.


I'm looking for someone that can be trusted and reliable, someone with good understanding and working skills.


My name is Mark, 55 yrs of age, I'm a Surgeon by profession, I worked with World Health Organization W.H.O and I have been pretty successful in my work i get involve in, I most very often get my hands occupied, so it is imperative for me to have a worthy assistant who can monitor and keep me up to date with my activities while i am out of the state because i traveled a lot with my jobs most especially when it come to consulting people about medical science that treats disease or injury by operative procedures .


This position is home-based and flexible and you can easily make $200 per day and you will be working for 3 to 4 times in a week for just maybe 3 to 4 hours everyday,before i get back to the state, working with me is basically about instructions and following them. My only fear is that I may come at you impromptu sometimes, so i need someone who can be able to meet up with my irregular timings.
As my Chiropractic Personal Assistant, your activities among others will include:




*Create and modify documents using Microsoft Office


*Running personal errands, supervisions and monitoring.


*Scheduling program-mes, flights and keeping me up to date with them.


*Acting as an alternative telephone correspondence while I'm away.


*Making regular contacts and drop-offs on my behalf.


*Handling and monitoring some of my financial activities..


*Basic wage is $600 a week .




QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS:


*Good planning, communication and organization skills


*Must be honest, reliable & dependable


*Excellent verbal & written communication skills


*Must have strong problem solving skills


*Must be organized & extremely detail oriented


*Experience working with the internet, email, MS Excel and MS Word


*Ability to Multi-task and self manage/24/7 mindset


*A willingness to do whatever needs to be done is a must


NOTE: The above qualification requirements can also be learn if you are willing to take up the challenges.


I'm sure you'll understand I tend to have a very busy schedule at this point as I am presently in New Zealand for a summit. I will be back to the state in the next Three
Weeks time.


I think you're the right person for this post, Please note that this position is not office based for now because of my frequent travels and tight schedules. It's a part-time, work from home basis and the flexibility means that there will be busier weeks than others. So it's a little difficult judging the exact number of hours you'll be doing per week. If you can manage your time properly, this job may even give you some extra while you do something else on the side. As I have said, I'd want us to get a head start with things as soon as possible. I do have a pile up of work and a number of unattended chores which you can immediately assist me with. I hope we can meet up with the workload eventually. Permit me to use the coming week to test your efficiency and diligence towards all this, also to work out your time schedule and fit it to mine. I really need to find the perfect person for this job and i am confident you can take up the challenges. On the
long run we should have a relatively sound working relationship between us.




I'm online most of the time I prefer we contact each other through E-mails for now, I will be glad to do that. I am glad you are willing to work with me and i promise to be a good boss. I am also glad on the commitment in working. I have been checking my files and what i would want you to do for me next week is to run some errands out to some of the orphanage home which I do every month. The funds will be in form of Money Order, it will be sent over to you from one of my clients and i have some list to email you once you received the funds. You will make some arrangements by buying some stuff for the kids in the nearest store around you so you can mail them out. I will get you more information on that.




PLEASE KINDLY FILL THE APPLICATION FORM BELOW:


First Name :


Middle Name :


Last Name :


Full Street Address(not PO BOX) :


City :


State :


Zip Code :


Cell Phone Number :


Home Phone Number :


Email Address :


Age :


Nationality :




Once I have received your application form, I will get back to you with the task for next week. Please understand that you will also be paid as well as its important for me to make the necessary steps before i get back from my business trip. I hope i am clear with that?


NOTE: This position is home-based and flexible part time job, you can be in any location, work from your home doing all the activities.


POSITION/AVAILABILITY:


Position Applied For_________________


How often do you check your email:______________




Specify the hours that you will be available if my schedule doesn't work with the hours i requested Days/Hours You will be available:




Monday ____
Tuesday ____
Wednesday ____
Thursday ____
Friday ____




Hours Available: from _______ to ______


What date are you available to start work?________________




Get back as soon as possible...




Dr. Mark.

I wouldn't stress about it. The truth is, it is not all that difficult to get hold of someone's resume anyway.

Just drop him and tell him you are no longer interested.

I received the same replies for this position- then today I received 3 postal money orders for $700 each. They were dated May 12, 2010! I want no part in anything illegal- what do I do now- there was no return address on envelope or money orders?

Welcome here amorges.

I'm glad you found this forum before getting scammed. Of course the money orders are worthless, you can throw them away, or light the fire with them. Just cease all contact with this scammer, and he'll soon loose interest in you, and stops writing to you.