Office Assistant via Craigslist

Got this email but after seeing some of the other things people posted, I now believe this to be a scam. Anybody want to give me a definite answer?

Hello Xxxxxx,

Hope you are having a pleasant day today. After a careful review of your details, I am glad to employ you as my Personal Assistant. I hope my decision will be worthwhile. I'll be using the next couple of weeks to test your efficiency and diligence towards this, also to work out your time schedule and fit it to mine. I really need 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 hope we can get a head start with things as soon as possible. I have had to put a hold on a lot and I would appreciate it if you can be available for me immediately. I do have a couple of urgent tasks for you which will include you making some purchases and payments on my behalf. Your official start date is Friday 2nd August 2013. You will receive a payment from my client via mail on or before Tuesday 6th August 2013 which will cover your wages for the week as well as purchases and payments needed to be made on my behalf. I will let you know as soon as the payment has been sent. As soon as you receive the payment, notify me of the receipt and go ahead to deposit the payment at your bank. The payment normally takes 24 hours to clear. Once the payments have cleared, deduct $500 for your wages for the week, another $50 for first class postage stamps for some mails you will be dispatching for me. I will forward the list of recipients you'll be sending the mails to once I compile it. The balance will be used for some materials which I intend purchasing for work. I'll let you know exactly what to do when the funds are available.

Kindly reply this e-mail as soon as possible to further signify your interest in working with me. I have confidence in you and I am looking forward to a good working relationship between us. I hope you will be up to, perhaps better than my presumptions about you.

The employee, acknowledged the Trial and Detailed Job description and signed .

(First Name and Last Name of Employee)

Hope to hear from you soon.

Best Regards,

Williams Harrison

Added quotation & removed personal information (BW)

He's looking for someone to turn fake checks or money orders into products to be sent to him, or into cash to be wired to him. If he didn't interview you (that means face-to-face), you don't have a job. If you haven't met in person, you can't be a personal assistant. And no real company pays by telling you to deduct money from what someone else sends you.

You are correct. It is a scam.
Nobody picks a random stranger on the internet, sends them money. Never happened.
Instead, this lad has some checking account numbers, and he has some check paper,
(or he has tricked his "personal assistant" into printing checks for him.)

It is really simple - he sends you a check, with a story that he is just too busy to pay his bills,
so you have to deposit the check in your personal account, then send money by Western Union
or MoneyGram to somebody. The trick is, your bank will trust you, let you take out the money,
because it is you that is responsible for every check you deposit, not the bank.

When the check bounces back, days, weeks, or even months later, you will have to pay all
of it back to the bank. You may be added to lists of people that are too crooked or gullible
to ever have an account. You may be called for interviews at the police station.

Western Union doesn't care who or where you addressed the money to, anybody can pick it up
with the transaction number, the amount, name of person who sent it. You would provide all
of that to the scammer by email, and he would have your money in minutes.

Party time in Nigeria! Can you have him arrested? No, you won't have any real information,
not his name, not his address, no real phone number.

The only way to win this game is, DO NOT PLAY!

@ksmith24 welcome to Scamwarners,

Please post the email address the scammer used. This will help others avoid his scam attempts if they search the internet using the email address.