Owen Green - [email protected]

Administrator disclaimer: Please note that the legitimate company, Tutors International, found at http://tutors-international.com , is being impersonated and is in no way connected to this scam. The real company has contacted us to verify that this is a scam conducted in their name. These scam emails did not originate from them and they do NOT use tutor-client matching services. The legitimate company website has been registered since 2003 and is located in the UK. -Jillian

---------------- begin original posting ---------------------------------------------

Hello. I´m spanish and I don´t know if I´m been scamed. This is the first email this "company" sent me, through a web called http://www.linkua.com

Dear José, Removed full name. ~Bubbles

There is a new message in your message board.

The user owen green send you:

Good morning my prospective teacher
Haven gone through your profile on LINKUA this morning, I’ve decided to
hire your service as a Spanish tutor to teach my European clientele
Mini contract Terms:
Starting Date: June 2011
Time zone: European time Zone
Teaching method: online
Lesson period: 20hrs teaching periods per month. (5hrs per teaching period
in week; Monday – Friday)
Total lesson period: 240hrs
Lesson Fee: 45euros per hour, to be paid monthly at the beginning of every
month.
Lesson type : General conversation, Business conversation, Vocabulary
building, Grammar, Pronunciation practice, Listening practice, Writing
practice, Translation/Interpretation, Survival travel conversation.
The classes are to be focused in 5 areas: Grammar, Oral Communication,
Written
Communication, Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary.
I await your response to this offer as soon as possible.
Thank you
Owen Green
N: B: all inquiries should be directed to: [email protected]


To view your received messages board click on the link below:

http://www.linkua.com/sign_in_nc/Messages

Best regards,
The Linkua.com staff

I replied pleased accepting his offer responisng to his email [email protected] . So, he answered me:

Good Day José, Removed name. ~Bubbles

Thanks for accepting my offer, In summary I will like you to know the
following; you will be handling just one student who’s at his entry
level, a written expression is good for a start maybe he can progress
to oral expression, his area of interest covers but not limited to
listening to Spanish gospel music, reading Spanish newspapers and
motivational books that were written in Spanish Language etc. The
classes are to be focused in 5 areas: Grammar, Oral Communication,
Written, Communication, Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary. You’re
to consider a total of 240hrs while drafting the timetable and study
plan. Your acceptance of this offer has being forwarded to my client
for his final approval I will get back to you as soon as I get his
approval.

Once again thanks anticipated quality services

Regards

Owen

This is the heading:

Delivered-To: [email protected]
Received: by 10.220.171.13 with SMTP id f13cs19587vcz;
Thu, 12 May 2011 12:15:10 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 10.223.57.134 as permitted sender) client-ip=10.223.57.134;
Authentication-Results: mr.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of [email protected] designates 10.223.57.134 as permitted sender) [email protected]; dkim=pass [email protected]
Received: from mr.google.com ([10.223.57.134])
by 10.223.57.134 with SMTP id c6mr697237fah.34.1305227709601 (num_hops = 1);
Thu, 12 May 2011 12:15:09 -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date
:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding;
bh=eFKMLQJK6RTQZ/HKRXP8mzC3Pzu5Tk3sywRz2niwn2s=;
b=a/D2IGLaizZ3O5DxTgXjpplQLffkECv1VNvXvdwsbKBUgnvIp1Ch0OZOvg/L1Ivg7p
SN0WgBlors1ZqLp1TGm8mXPiAAwZZvlZ3j473yYbIVFKMf7Fuf+5uhGki58yJEbxVpLO
hNNIbFPg7Ts+uiqUKwFMzpCQZnZ11wKzCRmB0=
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to
:content-type:content-transfer-encoding;
b=mo5JUfijAPCOi7u82MpcQuaEV46kPdRKNFkb7kLSaRzoYN74P0SuNHkj7cwSAafwMU
V7S1l3/z2LKykvdZBo/1nq0NvfSSIIigqbJpzhSjRkguTcx8MbgqGN2WPrW9koJm2ZnL
a8eiKSviZzjYcBsgMDiiyeNBxo4bFP09sVxCs=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.223.57.134 with SMTP id c6mr697237fah.34.1305227709590; Thu,
12 May 2011 12:15:09 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.223.81.75 with HTTP; Thu, 12 May 2011 12:15:09 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 12 May 2011 20:15:09 +0100
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: teacheing classes linkua
From: wood intergratedservice <[email protected]>
To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_Joaqu=EDn_Lac=E1rcel_Zamora?= <@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Good Day ,

Thanks for accepting my offer, In summary I will like you to know the
following; you will be handling just one student who=92s at his entry
level, a written expression is good for a start maybe he can progress
to oral expression, his area of interest covers but not limited to
listening to Spanish gospel music, reading Spanish newspapers and
motivational books that were written in Spanish Language etc. The
classes are to be focused in 5 areas: Grammar, Oral Communication,
Written, Communication, Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary. You=92re
to consider a total of 240hrs while drafting the timetable and study
plan. Your acceptance of this offer has being forwarded to my client
for his final approval I will get back to you as soon as I get his
approval.

Once again thanks anticipated quality services

Regards

Owen

And the next email with contract. The contract and the acceptance letter form are OK, and clear, but there is no data about this guy, only the name of the company "tutor internationa llc." and an adress, and a telephone:

Good Day José, Again

Attached to this letter is the format for writing the acceptance
letter and contract documents stating the terms and conditions ;
you’re required to return the signed copy of the contract as a scanned
documents together with your acceptance letter.

Thanks for anticipated quality service

Owen Green

I´m not sure about this offer. Could you help me? Thanks.

Welcome to ScamWarners josejoa . Are you a teacher? Are you being charged money to be registered as a tutor? Have you ever been a tutor before? What are your qualifications to be a tutor?

I do not need answers to these questions. These are questions I encourage you to ask yourself. There seem to be many hands involved in this situation. The linkua site is through GoDaddy. I encourage you to check with the business licensing bureau in Spain to see if this is a registered business.

I encourage you to be very careful with this situation and if they ask you for money especially by Western Union, stop dealing with them. Maybe someone else has better information.

Hello,

I understood. Actually, I´m a teacher, I´ve never paid any money for these services. Linkua is a webpage wich contacts tutors and students, with no costs. I registered there waiting for someone to get in touch with me. So, this "guy" contacted me with this purpose. I asked to this "contact" more questions about who they are, how they´ll pay me or how the classes will be given. When they answer me, I´ll put it here. I hope it occurr soon.

Thanks.

Hi Josejoa,
I have also just received a similar letter from the same person via linkua. I am also a Spanish teacher and would be very happy to teach the discussed student for 45€ per hour for one year. I have replied to a few emails, but also got to the point when I thought it was too good to be true and the contract looked a bit fishy. I have emailed him asking for a few changes to the contract and more definte payment arrangements and await his response.
I have also asked to speak to him via the telephone to assure myself he is genunine. In fact, I must be honest, I do not think he is genuine and believe this must be some kind of scam. I presume once the month is taught they will tempt us to give our bank details in order to receive payment. I cannot think of any other possible way to get our money, but who knows.
I would be very interested to hear any further developments you experience and will be more than happy to let you know what I find out.
Regards, Laurage

Jose. If you advertise your services as a teacher on-line, you will certainly attract scammers and that feels like a scam to me. A "business" using a free Gmail address is a bit of a red flag. Am I right in thinking that the phone number starts with 4470?

Hi laurage,

It´s good to hear that. When he gives me more information, I´ll let you know. I hope you do the same with your information. But, for the moment, I have to wait for his response. About the money, I think the same as you: He´ll ask for our bank details to do the first pay, but it wont happen. Who knows...

Thanks everybody.

Hello arnold,

I think you´re right. The number is +44 (790) 450-4*** and fax +44 (700) 593-1***. I tried to call him, but I wasn´t able to contact because the number was "not available"...mmm..

The first is a UK mobile phone number which is no real proof that the owner is in the UK. The second is a free one that transfers calls to another phone anywhere in the world. A sure sign of a scammer who wants to pretend to be in the UK, especially when given as a fax number.

Aham, so, could we say "busted"?

Aham, so, could we say "busted"?

Yeah, definitely busted... and I'm saying this from my own very recent experience - 10 days ago I received exactly the same letter, from the same guy, Owen Green, presenting himself in a very formal manner...it all sounded so official and legitimate, and I guess I wanted a job so badly, that I just neglected all the warning signals I felt, with all the inconsistencies of the whole deal... until yesterday morning, when I got this email:

I’m delighted to inform you that my client has approved the terms and
conditions for the lesson contract; as greed in the contract, you will
be receiving your first payment through a certified bank draft of
3500euros on or before 11th June 2011, being payment from a refund
policy of money back guarantee from my former partner; as soon as you
confirm the payment, you deduct your first salary of 900euros and send
the balance to my client for his Logistic expenses to Europe, you’re
required to confirm that the address on your acceptance letter is the
address for your parcel reception, as soon as I receive your
confirmation, I will forward it to my former partner with an
instruction to issue and send you the certified bank draft to enable
you start early preparations as regards sourcing of materials for the
lesson.

Once again thanks for your anticipated services.

Owen

I replied I refused to do what he asked me to do, telling him I have my firm beliefs the whole deal's a fraud, and luckily I haven't heard from him since.

And I have one question...this Owen Green guy sells himself as a representative of a non-existing company Tutor International LLC.
What about this company? Is this ''different'' but actually all the same? Does anybody have any information on it?
http://www.tutors-international.com/

Thanks!


------------------ Administrator disclaimer ------------------------

Please note that the legitimate company, Tutors International, found at http://tutors-international.com , is being impersonated and is in no way connected to this scam. The real company has contacted us to verify that this is a scam conducted in their name. These scam emails did not originate from them and they do NOT use tutor-client matching services. The legitimate company website has been registered since 2003 and is located in the UK. -Jillian

payment through a certified bank draft of
3500euros on or before 11th June 2011, being payment from a refund
policy of money back guarantee from my former partner; as soon as you
confirm the payment, you deduct your first salary of 900euros and send
the balance to my client for his Logistic expenses to Europe

And that's the scam. The "certified bank draft" would be a forgery. Your bank might accept it initially, but weeks or even months later the fake would be discovered and your money irretrievably lost.
And you might even get trouble with the police for trying to cash a conterfeit bank draft.

Congratulations to both for spotting a nasty scam.

All right, there is the point: a bank draft. Oh my godness... for the skin of my teeth. Thank you so much guys.

Hi josejoa,

we are glad to help.
And you can help, too: Write a letter to your teachers' association or to your local newspaper, and talk to friends and collegues about internet fraud - public awareness is what scammers hate most.

Encourage your friends to ask here if they receive an email they are not sure about.