Am I Being Scammed?In an effort to rake in some extra cash, I recently posted an add to craigslist offering my services as a chemistry tutor. It took a couple weeks, but I finally started getting some hits and last night I met with my first client. So far so good. I have one question though. In the past few days I've been getting these strange emails requesting my services and I can't help but be suspicious. Here's the text of the first message:
Good day to you over there, I need a tutor for my son (larry) for the month of (Feb), i got your advert while surfing through the internet and i really want my child to be taught by you.larry is 14 year old and easily catch up.

Although,i understand you are in (U.S} but i've arranged with my Nanny ASSOCAITE living there that my son is coming to stay with him for his period of tutoring and he has agreed with me,i am based in finland kindly get back to me with......

1.YOUR CHARGE FOR AN HOUR....

2.TOTAL CHARGES FOR 1 MONTH THAT HE
WILL BE TAUGHT 3 TIMES PER WEEK..

3.FULL NAME AND ADDRESS....

4.YOUR PHONE NUMBER..."

don't hesitate to e-mail with your total charges.

Sound suspicious to you? It did to me, but I responded anyway. I did give my phone number, but said I was located in "South Natomas area of Sacramento, just off Garden Highway,"--I wasn't about to give out my home address. If this is some sort of scam, how would it work?

And here's another email I just got:
Hello,
My name is debrah smith and i am 24 years old.I am a very tolerant person and down to earth,dont interfer into other peoples business cos i like to respect their privacy.I am looking for someone that i could confide in to take some Home Lessons in my new apartment i just acquired in the States(thanks to roomates.com), as I will be making my move from Marion Iowa to my new apartment very close to your place .i saw your ad the web.so i would like you to help me out in some Lessons,i work for a company as a model in the us, i want to know where you are located also as the company will be paying for the lessons and also i have a modelling partner her nick name is surygirl, I think she too is interested as we are both on this lesson,they are also paying for her lessons,Pls send me your location and i will mail you if this is possible please inform on your price ranges and also your address where the payment could be made to via cheque from my company,i await to hear from you.
regards
debrah

I was suspicious of this as well, but responded anyway (this time without even my phone number). Then, moments after I replied, I got another message from someone else, but with the exact same text as debrah's message. So obviously, these weren't for real, but what is it? In both, roomates.com was hyperlinked--is this just a crazy way to get people to their webpage?

9 comments

Blogger Hey Paul  said...

This is only a test. Do not panic.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007  

Anonymous Anonymous  said...

Hi!

I've also received the second e-mail, but the name of the 24 years old modell was different, she was called Sarah . The rest of the message was exactly the same, icluding the nickname of her modelling partner (surygirl).

Isn't that suspicious?

Ty

Monday, February 12, 2007  

Anonymous Anonymous  said...

I got the same exact e-mail as you all did. her name was sarah too. This must be a scam. i got lucky and researched her first, before i gave out info.

Sunday, February 18, 2007  

Anonymous Anonymous  said...

...just got the tutoring email sent to me as a response to a craigslist ad i posted. names were changes, but same text. yay for being able to google the text and finding this blog to confirm my suspicions so easily :-)

Wednesday, March 07, 2007  

Anonymous Anonymous  said...

yup, same old story. Exactly the same text. Some sort of scam.

Thursday, March 22, 2007  

Anonymous Anonymous  said...

This exact thing happened yesterday to my wife and today she got a response from yet another person with a simular request only this time it was about her son. My question is what can they achieve through this?

Wednesday, April 11, 2007  

Blogger Unknown  said...

Funny, I just got the exact same msg for spanish tutoring. I have no idea what they could accomplish through this. I think I'm going to mess with them a little...has anyone ever gone through with this??? I would be interested to find out what happened...Access2being@gmail.com

Monday, August 27, 2007  

Blogger Unknown  said...

Shawna Powell
to me

show details
7:01 am (10 hours ago)
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for your response.I really appreciate it.Myself and my friend are interested in having the lesson 2hour a day, 3 times a week[any day of your choice] In spanish .We should be doing this for just a month,but might continue as time goes on.SO please get back to me with the total amount for a month for both of us.
As regards payments,my company would be sending you a check of our leave allowance on our behalf which would used as payments .We would not mind to come over to your place.Please,do not forget to send the name you would want to appear on the check,and also the address you would like the payment to be sent to.I would require a contact telephone number as well.I await your urgent response.
Thanks for your co-operation,and looking forward to meeting you
PS....I would need you to prepare the quote for the lessons plus discount so i could know
how much we would be paying....
Regards
Shawna

...Here's the next response I got

Monday, August 27, 2007  

Anonymous Anonymous  said...

This is very probably a variant of the nigerian scam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud

Sunday, March 23, 2008  

Post a Comment  |  Back to Hey Paul.