by Scambaiter530
Sun Jul 31, 2011 12:00 am
I am currently being scammed by an individual whose email traces to Nigeria. I say "currently" because the scammer does not yet know that I am on to him.
The Scam:
I recently relocated to a new area to find better opportunities, and while looking for full-time employment, placed a Craigslist ad offering my services as a tutor and writing coach for local high school seniors and college freshmen.
My very first response was from a businessman in England, who represented that he would soon be traveling to my area on a month-long business trip with his 15-year-old daughter and required the services of a tutor and intructor to keep her productively occupied. He requested my rates.
In the ensuing e-mails he revealed that his wife had recently passed away, his hope that bringing his daughter to the U.S. on his business trip would be a vacation for her that would help take her mind off her loss, and that he would be meeting with management at an internationally known pharmaceuticals manufacturer (that,as it turns out, does have a subsidiary in my area).
By the fourth email, the "businessman" requested a quote for tutoring sessions 3 times each week for a month, and that he would make arrangements with a local cab company for his daughter's transportation to and from the sessions. I was hooked. Rent was due, I really needed the money, and this would be my first tutoring job in my new area.
Something, however, didn't feel right. I had spent a semester at Oxford as an undergraduate, and a summer at Cambridge as a graduate student. The businessman's grammar and syntax were wrong for an Englishman. He couldn't have been native born. Also, he hadn't complained when I increased my basic hourly rate so I could design a program specifically for his daughter rather than rely upon the local high school curriculum. In my experience, most people would have at least questioned the increase. Perhaps it was a scam, but he hadn't asked me to send money or merchandise. To the contrary, he had promised to pay my fee in advance prior to his arrival. How would he profit at my expense? Perhaps I was just being paranoid.
I looked up his address on google maps - Grosvenor Square in London. However, since I had once been there, I knew that the address he gave me was not the building in the photo, but actually the park accross the street. By then I was 90% sure that I was the intended victim of a scam, but still couldn't be sure how the scam would work.
The scam was revealed when he advised that his company had agreed to finance the tutoring and his daughter's transportation, but would only write one check. I am to deposit the check, keep my fee and $100 for my trouble, and forward the rest to the cab company. The specifics are to be provided to me when I acknowledge receipt of the check. I am sure that I will be told to send the money to the cab company by Western Union, only to find out later that the original check was fraudulent and I'm out the amount of the check plus the sum wired to the fictitious cab company.
I expect to receive the check in a matter of days. I am not sure if I am going to turn it over to the authorities or frame it and hang it over my desk to remind me that things that seem too good to be true usually are.
The Scam:
I recently relocated to a new area to find better opportunities, and while looking for full-time employment, placed a Craigslist ad offering my services as a tutor and writing coach for local high school seniors and college freshmen.
My very first response was from a businessman in England, who represented that he would soon be traveling to my area on a month-long business trip with his 15-year-old daughter and required the services of a tutor and intructor to keep her productively occupied. He requested my rates.
In the ensuing e-mails he revealed that his wife had recently passed away, his hope that bringing his daughter to the U.S. on his business trip would be a vacation for her that would help take her mind off her loss, and that he would be meeting with management at an internationally known pharmaceuticals manufacturer (that,as it turns out, does have a subsidiary in my area).
By the fourth email, the "businessman" requested a quote for tutoring sessions 3 times each week for a month, and that he would make arrangements with a local cab company for his daughter's transportation to and from the sessions. I was hooked. Rent was due, I really needed the money, and this would be my first tutoring job in my new area.
Something, however, didn't feel right. I had spent a semester at Oxford as an undergraduate, and a summer at Cambridge as a graduate student. The businessman's grammar and syntax were wrong for an Englishman. He couldn't have been native born. Also, he hadn't complained when I increased my basic hourly rate so I could design a program specifically for his daughter rather than rely upon the local high school curriculum. In my experience, most people would have at least questioned the increase. Perhaps it was a scam, but he hadn't asked me to send money or merchandise. To the contrary, he had promised to pay my fee in advance prior to his arrival. How would he profit at my expense? Perhaps I was just being paranoid.
I looked up his address on google maps - Grosvenor Square in London. However, since I had once been there, I knew that the address he gave me was not the building in the photo, but actually the park accross the street. By then I was 90% sure that I was the intended victim of a scam, but still couldn't be sure how the scam would work.
The scam was revealed when he advised that his company had agreed to finance the tutoring and his daughter's transportation, but would only write one check. I am to deposit the check, keep my fee and $100 for my trouble, and forward the rest to the cab company. The specifics are to be provided to me when I acknowledge receipt of the check. I am sure that I will be told to send the money to the cab company by Western Union, only to find out later that the original check was fraudulent and I'm out the amount of the check plus the sum wired to the fictitious cab company.
I expect to receive the check in a matter of days. I am not sure if I am going to turn it over to the authorities or frame it and hang it over my desk to remind me that things that seem too good to be true usually are.
