Office Assistant/ Personal Assistant Scam by "Mary Oliver"

I am a student jobhunter who is looking for job specifically in the film industry. I went onto an otherwise trustworthy job site to apply for jobs when I stumbled upon a listing for an office assistant from a real production company with a real site.

A few days later, I get this reply from "Mary Oliver" [email protected]:

Hi,

I received your resume regarding the job of an assistant. As a professional with a focus in international productions, the majority of my clients are out of the country. I need help with my errands because I am constantly out of town. As a matter of fact, I am currently on a business trip to Stockholm, Sweden. I will prepay you in advance to do my shopping, Bill payments, placing and expediting orders, picking-up and delivering items to my PO box. I will pick the items up from the post office when I return from Sweden on the 27th of October. How soon can you start?

I will email you the list and pictures of what to shop so you can do the shopping at Sears, Walmart, Best buy and other stores. I'll pay you $20/hr for your service for 10 hours every week. I'm prepared to pay for mileage/travel expense.I will provide clear set of instructions for each task I need done and sufficient funds to cover all errands. I'd love to meet with you upon my return from Sweden to discuss the possibility of making this job long term.

Well, let me know if you can do the job.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards.

I thought the fact that "she" didn't sign off with her name was weird and that she didn't use my name either. But I am a foolish desparate student with loans to pay so I replied saying I could start ASAP.
I got this:

Hi,

Everything sounds good. The hours are flexible so you can spread those 10 hours a week on your own time. Let me reiterate that this position guarantees $200 /week plus travel expenses and I will have work for you every week. I will provide you with sufficient funds and adequate instruction for every task. You will get directions at the beginning of each week of what needs to be done for the entire week. And for clarification, errand running part of the job will start now till i return on 27th of October. I will be sending money for my errands inclusive of payment for your services through one of my bank channels. The money will arrive inform of a Cheque, you will start working immediately you receive the cheque in the mail. How should your name go on the Cheque? What address should I send the Cheque to? and your phone number so i can contact you ?.

Thanks

Note the weird spelling of "check" and the capitalization. It felt fishy. I googled "her" name and didn't come up with anything positive or negative so I thought it was fine to send my address and phone. I felt so dumb when the jobsite emailed me saying this was a scam.

But I got away lucky. Before I could get caught in some fraudulent check scheme that others on this site have been victim to as well.

So I expect sometime later I will received a bogus check from wherever and instructions. I've already ceased communication with this scammer and I plan to shred that damn check.

Is there anything else I should do?

The spelling "cheque" is not weird, if one is in Europe, but there are other indications that the writer is in Africa, and it is a standard scam script. When you get the check, do not shred it, but bring it to the US Postal Inspection Service, if it came by US Mail, or the fraud department of whatever courier delivered it. The person who sent it is a victim of the scammer who thinks he has a job processing payroll.

Mary will send you messages threatening to sic the FBI on you for stealing her money, or something like that. Ignore them. Don't give her any clue that you know it's a scam.