by melyov
Sat Oct 04, 2014 8:18 am
Here is my story...recently i was approached on a job board website about a job offer as a virtual assistant...i took the job and performed some work before i found out that it was a scam....nothing this person told me about his identity was true from the photos, name, company, the type of work i would be doing. they almost got me to commit a crime but i was able to contact the local authorities hopefully before anyone was affected. of course i found all of this out after the fact. moral of the story educate yourself...never take things for face value even if it looks real...like checking with the bbb, looking at employer websites about what they do, looking for any red flags before getting involved.
i did all of these things and i was still misled. how i found out it was a scam...i talked to the real person that the scammer was posing as. i'm very upset that this happened to me so i spent the last 4 days trying to track down the person and doing research. does anyone have any good advise about ways to find the scammer...this is not about revenge...this about getting the word out to other victims.....
here is what i know....hiring for virtual assistants on elance.com under the name of markie9990, the request perform payroll duties, the emails are from [email protected], he claims to be an online autioneer out of texas, the photo goes back to an online speed dating website, the ip address traced back to california, the phone text messages from # 924-665-01, the person who called me his voice sounded middle eastern....the scam... email images of checks to be printed to be sent using usps labels ...all of these images were sent to my email..he asks you to buy bank checks at a local office supply store...he then says he'll reimburse you with your first paycheck for any costs....as it turns out all of these images are counterfit...after contacting my local authorities...f.b.i., sherriffs department, postal inspector, and ic3....i was able to prevent the usps envelopes from being mailed...from what the authorities told me this is a very common scam what happens in the end is the original scammer gets peoples bank account information and is able to steal money from them....i'm at a dead end exhausted all my resources....now just looking for advice and telling my story.
i did all of these things and i was still misled. how i found out it was a scam...i talked to the real person that the scammer was posing as. i'm very upset that this happened to me so i spent the last 4 days trying to track down the person and doing research. does anyone have any good advise about ways to find the scammer...this is not about revenge...this about getting the word out to other victims.....
here is what i know....hiring for virtual assistants on elance.com under the name of markie9990, the request perform payroll duties, the emails are from [email protected], he claims to be an online autioneer out of texas, the photo goes back to an online speed dating website, the ip address traced back to california, the phone text messages from # 924-665-01, the person who called me his voice sounded middle eastern....the scam... email images of checks to be printed to be sent using usps labels ...all of these images were sent to my email..he asks you to buy bank checks at a local office supply store...he then says he'll reimburse you with your first paycheck for any costs....as it turns out all of these images are counterfit...after contacting my local authorities...f.b.i., sherriffs department, postal inspector, and ic3....i was able to prevent the usps envelopes from being mailed...from what the authorities told me this is a very common scam what happens in the end is the original scammer gets peoples bank account information and is able to steal money from them....i'm at a dead end exhausted all my resources....now just looking for advice and telling my story.
