au pair scams

Hello
I've had a scam in trying to find au pair work can you please tell me if this is a scam or not?
Thank You
Dear Au Pair !!!

We are a very friendly bilingual English family with 2 kids aged 4 years and 2 years 3 month old.Elizabeth is 4 years while Maxwell is 2 years 3 month.. I work with Sheffield Majisterate court of Law here in UK and while my husband travels..He is a Pilot he works with British airline, we spend a lot of time with the children and believe in quality family time and meals together. We live in a quiet street in Sheffield in a large house with garden, pool and gym and within 10 minutes walk to the beautiful facilities of Sheffield, West Hampstead and Belsize Park, there are lots of public transport options, tube/train/bus and we can recommend an excellent and reasonably priced English language school nearby. We have a full time live-in housekeeper so your housework duties are light and limited to childrens affairs. You can attend language classes in the afternoon. We are used to having au pairs live with us and we would like you to truly enjoy becoming part of our family. You will be part of our meals, we talk a lot as a family about our day, we always have an ''open door'', you can use our facilities and we do a lot of activities together at home, you will meet the grandparents, our au pairs have spent Christmas and New Year with us and we go on holiday together to our summer house in France. We have a wide circle of friends from many countries and you will meet many interesting people. While respecting each others privacy, we are looking for someone who is comfortable to be part of our family, who is not looking to use our home as a base to party and go on late nights, and who is willing to help out beyond the call of duty , if children are sick or homework takes longer or extra help is needed. We believe in old fashioned values and principles of parenting. As adults we are not our childrens’ friends, we are there to educate and guide them and we have to make some tough decisions, we lay down some key rules and they have to be maintained, you will need to be firm with the kids according to their ages when they try to push the boundaries. If you are interested kindly get back to me soonest and let me know how soon you can pick up the position...

Warmest Regards,
Mrs Harewood..
This email was sent from [email protected]

And also this email received from Terry Sinclair

Dear Au pair,
we are looking for someone loving and energetic to look after our lovely 3 Years old baby boy John. Ideally the person would start as soon as possible, although we are prepared to wait for the right person. You will be required to look after him along with my wife during the day (Monday to Friday) whilst I am at work, with additional babysitting once or twice a week in the evenings or at the weekends. Additionally, we would really like it if you could help out with some light housework like vacuuming, doing laundry, etc. And preference will be given to those who love cooking as well! My wife is currently 2 months pregnant with our second child so as much help and assistance around the house would be excellent. The most important thing is that you must love kids, and be happy to help out around the house. We would like you to enjoy spending time with John, and take very good care of him. He is a very happy, friendly, cute boy, who really likes to be taken out of the house to playgroups, swimming in our pool, going to the swings or beach, meeting friends, etc. He will grow to love you very much. Ideally we would like you to become like one of our family. In return we can offer you a very competitive weekly wage of 400GBP for a live-in position (in our 5 bedroom detached villa, London,(UK) You will have your own double bedroom with en-suite ,television, DVD player, Wi-Fi internet access and radio. We can also give you access to our car if necessary.
Alternatively, we are happy to offer the right person a live-out position. If this was the case you must be available to work between 7.30am – 5pm Monday to Friday. We are a very flexible, young and easy-going couple, and want you to be happy with us. Travel costs will be covered by us. So do reply as soon as this mail comes to you, with when you will like to start up duties, and resume/pictures

Mr Terry Sinclair

Thank You

The first mail is comically awful and clearly from a clueless West African scammer.

For the second, the exact same offer (word for word) was made here by someone claiming to be another person last September

http://www.scamwarners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=52353&p=131162

and that was a scammer using the e-mail address [email protected]

I'm sorry but they're both scams.

Regarding the first Email from Mrs Harewood there are a few things that would scream scam. She has spelled magistrate incorrectly; working at a magistrate court you would expect her to be able to spell the word. Secondly, Sheffield has trams but it does not have a tube system as she claims. Plus, West Hampstead and Belsize Park are in London not Sheffield!

Regarding the second position - £400 a week would equate to an annual salary of just over 20,000 a year and considering you would get a room/travel costs too isn't that quite a good deal? Too good to be true????

I am no expert when it comes to Au Pair scams but I would guess this will end in them asking for some made up upfront payment in order for you to secure this 'job.' Never send any money up front for a job and especially not by Western Union or Moneygram.

Bilingual in Igbo and Yoruba, I bet. Certainly not English and French.