Is this a scam?

G'Day, you all! As I said in an earlier post in this section, I'm looking for a host family to be an Aupair in Australia... but it seems to be a lot of scammers interested in Aupairs, and that's annoying. Well, the thing is that I just found this family in Aupair World that's willing to take me in, but first I want to make sure that they're a genuine family.

Hi how are you? Sorry my reply is so late but we have
been busy with work and study.

First I would just like to say we live in Port Hedland
Western Australia if you are still interested we will be
looking for a new au pair shortly and later on in the year
and are just wondering when you would be available to
start?

Regards

Hope to hear of you soonish, and thank you heaps for the help!

Hello, FairyFloss,

It is difficult to tell from that email whether or not the family is genuine.

Therefore, the best advice at the moment is to research the rules and regulations for becoming an au pair in Australia, and compare them to anything which the host family may suggest. Follow the real regulations only!

To be an au pair in Australia, you need a Working Holiday Visa or a Work and Holiday Visa, and only citizens of a few countries are eligible for these visas. You can read about the Working Holiday Visa here:

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working ... ntries.htm

There are more details here:

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working ... -first.htm

And you can read about the Work and Holiday Visa here:

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday/462/

You can also read more details on the Au Pair World website itself:

http://www.aupair-world.net/index.php/visa/australia/

I will remove the host family's name and email address from your post, because we don't know yet whether it is a scam. You were right to include them, as all details enable us to provide more help - but I'll take them out for now, unless or until we discover that it is indeed the name and address of a scammer.

Could you post the headers of the email? If they show that the email comes from somewhere far from Australia, you can be pretty sure it's a scam.