How would this scam work?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 14 Jun 2010 Posts: 3

Hi everyone,

I work as a chem tutor and just recently posted an ad on craigslist advertising my services. I suspect that one of the replies I've got is a scam, but I'm not really sure how exactly the scammer is trying to trick me... Anyways, here is my correspondence so far:

from alexdavid <[email protected]>
--
Hello,

I want to know if you will be available to tutor my son three times
in a week.

At this point I didn't suspect this to be a scam, so I replied:

Hi,
Potentially yes. I'm busy till ~6pm on the week days though. The week-ends are generally pretty free. Which subject(s) would that be?

Next day I've got another email supposedly from the same guy; however, his email address is now different. Also, there is a lot of grammar/spelling mistakes; too many for a native speaker to make

from markson jeff <[email protected]>

Hello,

Thank you for responds,i'm Mr. Markson from United state but am
currently based in Ireland with my family,my son will be coming down
to U.S for an holiday and i want him to be busy throughout.I want to
know perhaps he can always come to you to teach him on your field 3
times in a week and 1 hour each day.If this is possible i will want
you to get back to me with the cost of your teaching for a month which
can start as soon as he get to the state.He should be in the state
very soon and will be coming to your house or meet at your nearest
library,I have already make arrangement with the Nanny that will be
taking care of him for his period of tutoring I have make contacts
with my son concerning the arrangement of the tutoring which he told
me he's ok with him .My son is 15 years old he's name is Samie.I want
you to get back to me with the cost of your teaching for a whole month
so that arrangement on the payment can be done in time.
I will be waiting to read back from you with your total charges
for a whole months asap.

Thanks .

So at this point I started to suspect that something was wrong with this guy. I still replied telling him how much I charge per hour and how much he would have to pay for the whole month. He responded saying:

I am more than happy to read back from you , I have make contacts with
my son concerning the arrangement of the tutoring which he told me is
alright by him and that he will be making arrangement for his arrival
any moment from now to commence,I will also ask him to come along with
the materials he will be needing concerning the lesson.I want you to
know that i am going to pay for 1 month and the payment will be issued
out via a cashier check or a certified check, also i want you to know
that i will instruct my client in the state and will be sending you my
salary payment,so the rest of the fund will be used to get
accommodation beside your location and any other arrangement for the
lesson,So as soon as you get the payment then you will have it process
and deduct your cost of tutoring for a month, and send remaining funds
to my son's Nanny so that he can relocate my son accommodation to your
nearest address for him to attend the lesson in the appropriate
time.Hope I can trust you with the remainder of the funds since you
are going to be my son tutor.I will be more than happy if you can get
back to me with your Full name ,street address ,city ,state and zip
code so that the payment an be mailed out to you in time.

I will be waiting to read back from you with the information requested today.

Thanks and God Bless

Mark.

I understand that this is definitely a scam, but what exactly is he trying to get from me? I mean, you can probably look up names and addresses in a phonebook. So, even if he knows mine, can he somehow use it to commit fraud? Any advice on what would be the best way to proceed?

Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 11:47 pm

He sends you off a fake cheque that is for more than you ask along with "can you send along the over payment to ...." etc.

By the time it all clears you're out the funds.

Regards,

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 14 Jun 2010 Posts: 3

I see. So in this case I can only lose the money if I send it to the Nanny myself or whoever he wants me to send it to?
And giving him my address (not that I'm planning to) would be relatively harmless?

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:09 am

idler wrote:

I see. So in this case I can only lose the money if I send it to the Nanny myself or whoever he wants me to send it to?
And giving him my address (not that I'm planning to) would be relatively harmless?

No money and therefore no harm, no foul.

However...

Do not under any circumstances give out any real info. One never knows if they might well have an acquaintance helping them work things in your neck of the woods.

If you haven't given him anything with which to track you down you can hook up with some mentors on here and they can help you through baiting the scammer. A useful way to keep him away from those offering honest services like yourself.

Regards,

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:16 am

The cheque would be fraudulent, and even if initially it appeared to clear, it would later be discovered as fraudulent, and the amount it covered would be subtracted from your bank account. Therefore, the cash you forwarded to the fake Nanny (the scammer himself, or one of his associates) would end up being your own cash that you had sent.

This type of scam can certainly be baited, and you will find tips in 'Baiting Check Scammers' here. That tutorial is primarily covering a different kind of employment scam, but there is still plenty of information useful for this sort of scam too.

However, as Ishkabibble has pointed out, you do not want a scammer that you are baiting to have any real-life information about yourself. If you wish to bait this one, you will need to firstly set up a baiting email address in a false name and with fake information. Then you can pretend that you received this Lad's first message at that address (he will have sent out many identical messages so is unlikely to notice that he never sent one to your fake character) and reply to him from there, in a different style, and with different (invented) details about your fake self and what you have to offer.

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:18 am

Best to simply stop communicating with him altogether.

If you were thinking you could just cash the check and not send the return payment, you then become involved and may be liable once the check bounces. Likely the check couldn't be cashed anyway, and you potentially face having to pay a fee when it bounces, etc.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 14 Jun 2010 Posts: 3

Got it. Thanks everyone!

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 1:31 am

Unfortunately if you advertise any product or service on Craigslist you will run into these vermin. The scam always ends up being some form of an overpayment check with you forwarding the "balance" to a ...shipping company..travel agent..nanny...landscaper...travel permit office etc etc etc.

Note that the scammer referred to your "field", they avoid specifics so they can reuse scripts over and again.

The victim ends up laundering a fake check and sending real money to the scammer. It's an insidious crime, these guys usually steal money people don't even have. Happily this particular scammer is quite incompetent. Some of the criminals scamming on au pair and other employment sites are frighteningly believable.

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