Administrative Assistant ad on Craigslist

Hi. I replied to an ad for an admin assistant on Craigslist and I sent a cover letter and my resume. I received a weird e-mail from this guy who said he was a lawyer, but he had really bad grammar. I pretty much know it's a scam, but I'm worried he could do something with the information that's on my resume. It's just my name, address, phone number, email, work and school history. But I'm not sure if he could do anything creepy with it. Should I be worried?

And just in case anybody's interested here's the emails he sent me:

"Hi,

Thanks for your interest in the position on craigslist and I am sorry for getting back to you lately,I have been trying to reply to your email but my account keep sending it back to me. I decided to open another email to respond to your email and will appreciate your responses here. I will deeply appreciate all genuine efforts to help me monitor and keep up to date with all my activities.I need a very good and competent personal assistant that will handle some of my administrative and personal errands. I have had a previous PA who has been very commendable in her activities and who has been part of my life for the past 6 months, she has since returned to her country. I sincerely hope I will be able to find someone again who will be as efficient as she has been.



I'm Dale Retter, 45 yrs of age, originally from Sydney, Australia, but I have spent a whole lot here in United State. I'm a lawyer by profession and I have been pretty successful in a handful of ventures I get involved in; from the Angel Investment Network in Canada and United State to various welfare and community service programs, 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. However, I’m presently in Canada for a summit and shall be spending 2 weeks here before getting back to the states.



As my assistant, your activities amongst other things will include.



*Running personal errands, supervisions and monitoring.

*Scheduling programmes, flights and keeping me up to date with them.

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

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

*Handling and monitoring some of my administrative files and financial activities.



Basic wage is $500 a week



This position is home-based and flexible, 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. There is also a very sensitive issue on trust and accountability which I believe will resolve itself as time goes on. This is only an introductory e-mail, as time goes on we should be able to arrange a proper meeting to get things started officially. I will like to know if you are interested.

Dale Retter Esq."

My Response:

"Hi,

I have read through the job description you sent and I feel this would
be a good fit for both of us. I am interested in setting up an
interview to discuss my qualifications for the position. I do have one
question, are you located in Seattle?

Thanks,
xxx"

"Hi,

Thanks for your email. I am sorry for the late in response and I'm sure you'll understand I tend to have a very busy schedule at this point. 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, 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 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, I do that every mo nth.

The funds will be in form o f Money Order or Cashiers Check and it will be sent over to you from one of my clients and i have some list of items that will be emailed to 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 and I will want you to provide me your information for record purpose and for the remmittance of the payment to you. Get back to me with the following information:





FIRST NAME ..................... SURNAME...................

ADDRESS..................

CITY ...........STATE..............

..........

ZIP CODE.............COUNTRY....... .........

HOME PHONE NUMBER........................

CELL PHONE NUMBER........................

PRESENT OCCUPATION.................... ....

GENDER.............MARITAL STATUS........

AGE..........

NATIONALITY..................

EMAIL ADDRESS...........

ALTERNATE EMAIL ADDRESS...........



Once I received your contact information I will get back to you with the task for this week, Understand you will also be paid as well as its important for me to make the necessary steps before I get to the state. This can act as a stable foundation to our working relationship. Hope to hear back from you ASAP.



Cheers.

Dale Retter Esq."

As soon as he asked for all that personal information, before even wanting to do an interview, I knew there was something up. I copied one of the sentences from his last email and pasted it in Google and found a bunch of people who had received the same email.

Also, each time he emailed me it was a new email, he wouldn't reply. So I pretty much know it's a scam, I'm just wondering if there's anything he could do with my basic info like my full name, address and phone number.

Thanks.

Hi Dancing Cow

Welcome to Scamwarners

Thank you for posting this information, yes, I am sure you are right, its a definate scam.

While it is not ideal that the scammers have your information, it's not going to cause you any physical danger, the scammer may send you threats or inpersonate law enforcement to try to continue the scam or he may use your details to make a more convincing charactor to scam with.

All you can do is cease all communication, be on the look out for more scams and be more vigilant before handing out details in the future.

If you do have any questions, please feel free to ask

Regards
Ralph

Thanks. I reported it to the Internet Complaint place. It's just annoying, because the ad on Craigslist looks like every other ad. It sucks to not know who you're sending your resume to.

He asked for your resume as that is what a real employer would do. If you sent it as an attachment, he probably never even read it.
It's certainly a scam. The check would be fake and would be cleared initially, as US banks have to make the funds available within three days. Sometime after you've mailed out the "some stuff for the kids", the check will be found to be fake and the money clawed back. I'd expect the "some stuff for the kids" to be expensive to make the scam wothwhile. Or the check will be for a large amount, most of which you'd be asked to send on by Western Union.
The first part of his email really means that his no doubt free webmail address had been closed following a complaint.

Hi, DancingCow, and welcome to Scamwarners

You were smart to pick up on the bad grammar, and to search on a sentence from the second email. As Ralph and Arnold have said, you are in no danger of identity theft with the information you've given the scammer - it's information you'd give to any potential employer.

Keep looking - the right job for you is out there.

The smarter scammers hide what the job entails at the outset, or it would be too easy to work out that they send you a dud cheque and you send them cash by Western Union.

If the job entails someone sending you a cheque, which you then transfer on by Western Union, the simple question to ask yourself is, why doesn't the person just send the money direct by Western Union in the first place, missing you out ?

Using you only incurs an unnecessary cost, so what value do you add ? The truth you add all the value, as the money being transferred is your own money, and the bank will charge you back when the cheque bounces.

You cannot rely on usual clearance periods, as scammers seek out banks that are slow to clear cheques and they can put magnetic encoding on the cheques that will purposely misroute them, causing delays. However long it takes to be returned, the banks will always charge you back on a counterfeit cheque.

He's still trying he contacted me on Friday, October 16th, 2009. It seemed pretty good until he had me download Messenger and chatted with him he asked alot of personal questions like do you live alone?

He was suppose to send me checks on Monday and I was suppose to send them out. I'm sure glad that you posted your information to let me know about him.

He's seems like a real businessman. Don't get sucked into this.

I googled his name and found ScamWarners. Thank you again. Who knows what he is up to. I'm thankful not to be part of it. I deleted everything this morning. It did look exactly like what you posted.

Thank you, Laughing Cow

Hi Daneen

Welcome to Scamwarners

Glad to hear you have avoided being scammed, well done Dancing Cow for posting

Note these search results on phrase from scammers mail click here and click here

I am one of the Directors of AIN and wanted to explain that these job postings have nothing to do with our company.

This individual has never worked for nor had any involvement with our company.

He is acting under several aliases including:
• Frank Thomas
• Michael Richardson
• Brian Peterson
• Mark Donald
• David Hoo

We would obviously advise you not to respond to these job listings and please feel free to contact us through our website if you have any questions about this.

Best wishes,

Mike

Welcome to Scamwarners.

I am one of the Directors of AIN and wanted to explain that these job postings have nothing to do with our company.

That goes without saying, and we never thought otherwise. We're well used to scammers impersonating real businesses, but this time it didn't get mentioned.

He is at it again, new alias MArk Daniels, same email response,

hello..
Thanks for applying for the post, I quite appreciate it? Am sorry for the late reply am mark Daniels by name ....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 to work very well and good understanding person..


This position is home-based and flexible, 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 assistant,
your activities amongst other things will include;


*Running personal errands, supervisions and monitoring. Scheduling programmes,
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 $500 a week .

I'm sure you'll understand I tend to have a very busy schedule at this point, as I am
presently in new york so you will be working for me from your house till i get back to the state

okay


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, 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'm online most of the
time as I am hard of hearing so I prefer to we contact each other through E-mails, but if
there is need for me to call, I will be glad to do that.
and my yahoo IM is (markdaniels19)


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 this week is to run some errands out to some of the orphanage home, I
do that every month . The funds will be in form of check and 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,I will like
you to get back to me with your Contact Details such as:

Full Name:
Contact Address
City:
State:
Zip-Code:
Phone Numbers:
Occupation:
Sex:
Martial:
Age:
mark

I got the exact same e-mail today - Of course, I'm not going to respond, but like others, I'm concerned that he has my address & phone number. ALL I WANT IS A JOB!!!


Hello..
Thanks for applying for the post, I quite appreciate it? am Mark Daniels by name ....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 to work very well and good understanding person..


This position is home-based and flexible, 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 assistant, your activities amongst other things will include; *Running personal errands, supervisions and monitoring. Scheduling programmes,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 $5500 a week .

I'm sure you'll understand I tend to have a very busy schedule at this point, as I am presently in California now so you will be working for me from your house till i get back to the state to meet you okay and am working for a textil company am at the head office now but i will be coming back to soon


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 this 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, 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'm online most of the time as I am hard of hearing so I prefer to we contact each other through E-mails, but if
there is need for me to call, I will be glad to do that. and my yahoo IM is (markdaniels19)


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 this week is to run some errands out to some of the orphanage home, I do that every month . The funds will be in form of check and 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,I will like you to get back to me with your Contact Details such as:

Full Name:
Contact Address
City:
State:
Zip-Code:
Phone Numbers:
Occupation:
Sex:
Martial:
Age:

get back to me as soon as you can okay .
Mark

Welcome here bigknitter1

Don't worrie about your address and phone number. Now that you stopped communicating with him, then the scammer will know that you have figured out that it is a scam, and he can't rely on you to use your address. This scam is about money processing, possibly with fake checks which are send to you. Then you are asked to cash the fake checks, and send part of the money to the scammer with western union.

Just to let everyone know. Mark is still at it in September. Here's is his email as of this morning. Again it was in response to an executive administrative assistant position on craigslist. His present email being used is [email protected]

Hello,

Thanks for your response. My name is Mark Daniel. I live in State but presently in UK on a business trip and I need a part time personal assistant urgently to run my errands until I return to the State by fourth week in October. I own a beadshop and clothing store in Cambridge,United Kingdom. I produce arts design, handmade craft work,excellent language arts and math materials for children and teachers in grades kindergarten through three . Here below is the job description.

1. You will run errands for three times a week and two hours each day.
2. You will do my business shopping.
3. You will receive my packages which will be shipped to the nearest UPS office to you. You will go to the UPS office and pick up the packages. The content of the packages are electronics, clothes, my business and personal letters. You will open the packages and confirm the contents for record purpose.
4. You will ship out some of the packages where I want them to be shipped to. (You don't have to pay for the shipment. All expenses and taxes will be covered by me)
5. You will receive payments from my clients on my behalf which will be written payable to your name so you deposit them at your bank. The payments will be in either check or money order. The payments will be for the services you will be rendering and to do my business shopping.

Job Requirement
1. You must have good communication skill.
2. You must be efficient, reliable, responsible and trustworthy.
3. You mush be able to perform your tasks effectively
4. You should be able to work 3 times per week and 2 hours each day.

Payment and Work Duration
The Job will last for mininum of three months. I want to open another electronics and clothing store in the state when I return and If there is need to extend your services, an amendment would be made to your wages and you will be notified accordingly. I will meet you in person by October when am back to the State. I am willing to pay $500 per week. Your weekly payment will be deducted from the payments sent to you by my clients.

I need the service of a personal assistant because I am always out of town for business trips. The lists and pictures of what to shop will be sent to you via email when am ready. No heavy packages are involved! The shopping will be done at any nearest stores to you. You will be shopping for Electronics,Computer Accessories and clothes. My personal UPS account number will be provided for shipping. I will provide clear set of instructions for each task to be done and funds to cover them.

If interested, Please confirm the following details:

Your Full Name:
Your Full Address with apt #:

Your Cell phone number:
DOB(Optional):
Present Occupation:

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
Mark Daniel

Tel: +447405903514
K and M Beadshop