Avoiding Scammers, need help

Hi there,
Me and my girlfriend are looking for an aupair couple opportunity in the UK, so we registered on several web pages, and we were contacted by several persons. I will copy here the email addresses which seem to be scam. I will not copy the mail text, because i'm sure that you already know half of them, but please tell me the one you need the hole text to discover if it's a scam or not. Many thanks.

1. [email protected]
2. [email protected]
3. [email protected]
4. m.watts1965@ yahoo.com
5. [email protected]
6. [email protected]
7. [email protected]
8. [email protected]

[AlanJones]

Hi Steven,

I did a search on Google and here for the email addresses and this is the result

1. [email protected] - no matches
2. [email protected] - no matches
3. [email protected] - scam there are multiple matches on ScamWarners for that email address
4. m.watts1965@ yahoo.com - scam there are multiple matches on ScamWarners for that email address
5. [email protected] - scam there are multiple matches on ScamWarners for that email address
6. [email protected] - no matches
7. [email protected] - no matches
8. [email protected] - might be legitimate as there are news paper articles quoting that email address as one of their contributors.

For the ones where there are no matches, this doesn't mean they are legitimate. If they ask you to send money by Western Union or MoneyGram for fees then it is a scam.

With regards to the last one, is the email address they want you to reply to the same as the one you quote? If is is then it might be legitimate, but the same advice re fees stands.

the mail address, [email protected], is the address from where I was contacted. They did not ask me to respond to another address so I will respond to this one.

[AlanJones]

When you hit reply, just check that the address in the to box doesn't change. It is not unknown for scammers to spoof sending emails from a legitimate address with the reply going to their own address.

If the address ties up then I would say that you have found a legitimate employer (she appears to be a local journalist), but the same advice about sending fees by Western Union/MoneyGram still applies.

thanks a lott...i sure will focus on things you said, and if i discover that somebody is a scammer i sure will write here to help others too.
if it helps, i can copy the text from those addresses you did not find anything.

Steven,

Please do post the actual text from the other ones that didn't yield results. Chances are, at least some are scams, and we can help you to identify those and warn others at the same time.

Hello.

I got an email from [email protected] yesterday.. So, it can't be true, or?

Welcome here Madseen.

Could you please post the email that you received from them? Then we can tell you wether it is a scam or not.

mail directly from <[email protected]>

We are looking for someone who is outgoing, enthusiastic and creative. You will quickly meet other au pairs here where we live and we are not far from London city center. My family and friends often ask if my au pairs would like to babysit for them paid of course so there is a chance to earn some extra pocket money while you are working with us. My au pairs have a lot of free time and have had friends and family come to visit and stay while they were with us.
I currently work 4 days a week and the boys are in school 5 minute walk from the house. I have already had 2 au pairs the current girl has been with us for 18 months! Generally I like my au pairs to focus on the children, to collect them from school, to help with homework and to do activities with them such as general playing, reading, puzzles, drawing, Lego, music, football etc. Sometimes I ask for light housework or extra babysitting.
We will like the aupair to make our boys have fun and to be a reference of behavior to them. To share there childhood, making them feel safe and happy. To be kind with us, the parents, and to be polite, sincere, responsible and clean.
As said in the previous email, we have 2 boys (Ethan and Noah) Ethan is 7 and Noah is 4. Noah is shy at the beginning, but if he has a good feeling with people he opens quickly. He is polite and nice with others, some times shy. Ethan is gentle but smart with good sense of humor and he is fun to be with.
You will have plenty of free time to go to language school in the local town and there are many families nearby and I can introduce you to many au pairs.
We live in a beautiful part of London and our home address is 128a, flat 16, Brent street, London. It is in the countryside and you will have use of one of our cars if you have driving experience but it is not a problem if you can't drive as we can enroll you in a driving lesson as soon as you start working with us and we are only a 5 minute drive from the local town and 10 minute drive from two major cities.
There will be a few hours a week of sole charge of Noah until next September when he will be at school until 3.30. Until then he finishes school 2-3 days a week at 1.00 pm but I will be home from work between 4-5 daily. In the school holidays, I would ask you to have as much fun as possible with the boys! We have a large 3 bedroom house with big garden and swimming pool. We hope to pay £12 hourly plus bus ticket worth £95 weekly and we will also provide you with a mobile phone with some inclusive minutes each month and the rest would be your responsibility. We would love a friendly, cheerful aupair with a sense of humor and fun! Your duty is basically taking care of the kids and you will be required to work for 35/40 hours weekly from Monday to Friday with weekends off. Before we proceed further we will still like you to answer these few questions. 1) What is your nationality? 2) Have you ever traveled outside your home country before? 3) Have you much experience working with kid’s? 4) Do you smoke? 5) Do you drink? 6) Do you have brothers and sisters? 7) Do you Drive? 8 ) Do you mind doing light cooking? 9) Can you help with shopping? 10) Can you help with housework?
Hope to hear from you soon.

Answer to: Estrella Angeles <[email protected]>

Sorry for the stupid question, but please tell me, where did you find my profile, and did you read my "dear family letter"?

From:
Estrella Angeles <[email protected]>

We are a active family of four which comprise of me and my husband (The parent) with our 2 sons Ethan and Noah. We will like to find a resposible, honest and hardworking au pair to take good care of our 2 boys. We are an easy going & sociable family and are generally busy in the weekend with all sorts of activities. The children are very sweet, they get on great together and are interested in lots of things. Kindly let us know if you will like to join so that we can furnish you with more details about my family and your duty.
Hope to hear from you soon.

To:
first of all please tell me from where do you have my contact details.

From: Estrella Angeles

Thanks for the swift response, your profile is one of the profiles recommended to us by an aupair agent in UK whom i paid to help me search for a reliable and honest aupair. I have contacted you because i found your profile more suitable out of all the profiles sent to me by the aupair agent and i am glad to know that you are also interested in my family.
Before we proceed further we will still like you to answer these few questions. 1) What is your nationality? 2) Have you ever traveled outside your home country before? 3) Have you much experience working with kid’s? 4) Do you smoke? 5) Do you drink? 6) Do you have brothers and sisters? 7) Do you Drive? Do you mind doing light cooking? 9) Can you help with shopping? 10) Can you help with housework?
Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks for posting Steven.
There are definite signs of scam in the mail you posted. For example they took a lot of text directly from this advert from easyaupair.com and then just changed a few words. The description of their location does not ring true either.

It's also very informative to see their answer to your simple question "where did you get my contact details" - they are evasive and do not answer the question, very much the sign of a scammer.

Yes, it is a scam.

There will be a few hours a week of sole charge of Noah until next September when he will be at school until 3.30. Until then he finishes school 2-3 days a week at 1.00 pm but I will be home from work between 4-5 daily. In the school holidays, I would ask you to have as much fun as possible with the boys! We have a large 3 bedroom house with big garden and swimming pool. We hope to pay £12 hourly plus bus ticket worth £95 weekly and we will also provide you with a mobile phone with some inclusive minutes each month and the rest would be your responsibility. We would love a friendly, cheerful aupair with a sense of humor and fun!

These sentences have been used in several scams; you can see one example here:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=28136&p=76172

t is the same but with diferent e-mail and address

daniel abraham [email protected]

We are looking for someone who is outgoing, enthusiastic and creative. You will quickly meet other au pairs here where we live and we are not far from London city center. My family and friends often ask if my au pairs would like to babysit for them paid of course so there is a chance to earn some extra pocket money while you are working with us. My au pairs have a lot of free time and have had friends and family come to visit and stay while they were with us.
I currently work 4 days a week and the boys are in school 5 minute walk from the house. I have already had 2 au pairs the current girl has been with us for 18 months! Generally I like my au pairs to focus on the children, to collect them from school, to help with homework and to do activities with them such as general playing, reading, puzzles, drawing, Lego, music, football etc. Sometimes I ask for light housework or extra babysitting.
We will like the aupair to make our boys have fun and to be a reference of behavior to them. To share there childhood, making them feel safe and happy. To be kind with us, the parents, and to be polite, sincere, responsible and clean.
As said in the previous email, we have 2 boys (Ethan and Noah) Ethan is 7 and Noah is 4. Noah is shy at the beginning, but if he has a good feeling with people he opens quickly. He is polite and nice with others, some times shy. Ethan is gentle but smart with good sense of humor and he is fun to be with.
You will have plenty of free time to go to language school in the local town and there are many families nearby and I can introduce you to many au pairs.
We live in a beautiful part of London and our home address is 138, Brent St, London NW4 2DR, UK. It is in the countryside and you will have use of one of our cars if you have driving experience but it is not a problem if you can't drive as we can enroll you in a driving lesson as soon as you start working with us and we are only a 5 minute drive from the local town and 10 minute drive from two major cities.
There will be a few hours a week of sole charge of Noah until next September when he will be at school until 3.30. Until then he finishes school 2-3 days a week at 1.00 pm but I will be home from work between 4-5 daily. In the school holidays, I would ask you to have as much fun as possible with the boys! We have a large 3 bedroom house with big garden and swimming pool. We hope to pay £12 hourly plus bus ticket worth £95 weekly and we will also provide you with a mobile phone with some inclusive minutes each month and the rest would be your responsibility. We would love a friendly, cheerful aupair with a sense of humor and fun! Your duty is basically taking care of the kids and you will be required to work for 35/40 hours weekly from Monday to Friday with weekends off. Before we proceed further we will still like you to answer these few questions. 1) What is your nationality? 2) Have you ever traveled outside your home country before? 3) Have you much experience working with kid’s? 4) Do you smoke? 5) Do you drink? 6) Do you have brothers and sisters? 7) Do you Drive? 8 ) Do you mind doing light cooking? 9) Can you help with shopping? 10) Can you help with housework?
Hope to hear from you soon.

Welcome, and thank you for the update valll. It's extremely useful to see the changes in the letters the scammers use, in order to provide the greatest possibility of reaching potential victims.

[AlanJones]

It is impossible to tell just from the email address, and they are not using a normal script as they have asked if you will work seperatly which is not a normal scammer question. Could you post the headers from their email so we can see if we can track where they are writing from.

If you want to proceed with them, then be careful and watch out for them trying to introduce travel agents and visa departments.

HI i was sent a mail from this address: [email protected]... i asked foe more information and papers they sent me some. Could you give me information about them if you have some?
thanks