Scam

Hi everyone!

Being a language tutor and dealing with online tutoring and online self-advertising, you earlier or later face the problem of scammers. The expansion of this fact on the web is incredible. I myself have gotten four scam letters in the last five days. Oops, I just got a new one typing this, so it is now five. Their pattern is surprizingly common, and usually quite recognizable. This post is mainly for those who are new in this issue. I would also like to raise a discussion about different scam activities you’ve faced, as well as their patterns and ways to recognize.

As far as those people definitely target tutors, I would like to present the pattern they apply when they make a “lesson request”. In the letter, they inform you that they come from another country (from England to Nigeria), and their son/daughter is soon coming to the US on vacation. As they are “really” interested in their beloved child being busy and spending time with pleasure and usefulness, so they want lessons for the kid. Of course, they don’t even specify which language the lessons should be in (in my ad, a few languages are indicated). The langauge is sloppy, and it is funny if they present themselves as residents of the UK with highly correct use of English like “an holiday” and “I will like you to …” At the end of the letter, they ask you about your schedule and if you are comfortable with the days of week they request. They also want information about the total cost of the lessons for one month. Actually, even though the language is sloppy, the first letter I got (which was from a person whose surname sounded Spanish) made me believe they could be real customers. I thoroughly calculated the price and sent them an answer. The next message they send to you after that is that they want to send you a check for, say, $4000, and they ask you to be so kind to substract the cost of the lessons from the sum and transfer the rest of the money back to them. Of course, if you swallow the bait, the next what happens is that you of course get no student after the whole “transaction” is committed, and your bank informs you in a week that the check they sent to you is fake. Thus, you have kindly donated over $3000 to poor (but smart) people from overseas, and not only from overseas. All five letters I got look like this:

Hello

This is Dr .Tammy Wagner.i’m a medical doctor here in England,my son will be coming for an holiday in the U.S,and i want him to be busy throughout..
Therefore, i just want to know maybe he can always come to you and teach him great (TUTORS) every afternoon. If this is possible,i will want you to get back to me with the cost of your teaching for 1MONTH Starting from 19th of MAY…He will be coming to your house for 1 hour each afternoon,

I have someone that will always drive him down to your house.. MY son name is Chris,he is 13 years old. I will want you to calculate 1 hour per day for Monday,wesnday,Friday for the whole 1 MONTH,and get back to me so that we can arrange on payment.
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 WITH ZIP CODE….

4.YOUR PHONE NUMBER…

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

Thanks and sincere regards from me,pls let me
know or you can call me on my cell phone, please dial as presented
for international calls +447035905773 my husband name is Dan
My due regards

Dr. DAN & TAMMY WAGNER ,Ph.D (Chemist)
St. Mark Hospital
28 Northwick Park,Watford Road,
Harrow,Middlesex HA1 3UJ,
United Kingdom .
Phone: +447035905773
Fax: +447045744374

BTW, you can also notice that in the “to” section of the mail it is not only your address, but a whole list of dispatch.

Here’s a list of the scammers I met:
benjose008@yahoo.com
maxscott1@hotmail.com
jana_calvin_luv_07@yahoo.com
susan_smith1986@yahoo.com
tammywagner33@yahoo.com

I am sure this list can expand and expand…

I would like you guys to share your scam experience because this is getting intimidating, and I have recently been informed that an acquaintance of mine has already made a “payment” like this having believed a scammer.

Thanks,
Yuriy

Hey Yuriy. Just to clarify, are you getting these messages through eduFire or some other way? If you (or anyone else) ever receives messages like this through eduFire just let us know and we’ll immediately cut off those accounts.

And yeah, sending checks through the mail to people you don’t know probably isn’t a good idea… :)

Thanks for the information Yuriy!! Good Info :)

Hi Jon-
I am getting the messages through e-mail after posting a couple of ads on craigslist.org; eduFire has nothing to do with that – I just wanted to inform the community about potential risk of self-advertising online. Unfortunately, many people still believe those scammers…

Another piece of advise for tutors could be to search the web in case you are suspicious about a lesson request you receive. I copy-pasted the piece I posted here and googled it. I immediately found multiple discussion boards where they are well acquainted with Mrs Tammy Wagner from the UK…

Thanks for the info Yuriy.

Oh, I get so many of those messages!!!
Most of the time they are about kids, but lately I’ve got another message from Maria Gonzales from UK. I still cannot believe that I actually paid $3 for contacting this person because I believed it! (The website, where she have found me charges $3 per responding to an inquiry)
Just so you know, the message sounded really interesting – a company send its employees for some trainings to the US (from UK…) and they are contacting my school (as I own a small language school) regarding to organizing a language course. After all those scams, this sounded really good and I had a bad feeling because of the name and the UK but I gave it a shot…
And after the second email I knew it…
She asked me even about my age and marital status!!!!!

The trick I’ve done on craigslist: I put the info below my post that I will really appreciate it, if they save me from the UK-scam… And it actually worked!:)

By the way, I was wondering what is going on with those stupid language mistakes???

Yuriy, thanks that you mentioned it!!!

Yuriy, thank you for this. This is what I got today in my email (not through eduFire):

—————————
Hello ,
Good day to you over there am in need of a good teacher a tutor for my son Alex for this month and nest month i got your advert while surfing through the internet and i really want my child to be taught by you Alex is 14 year old and easily catch up.Although,i understand you are in (Italy} but i’ve arranged with my client son Nanny living there that my son is coming to stay with him for his period of tutoring and he has agreed with me to come to the state ,kindly get back to me with…..

1.CHARGE FOR AN HOUR….
2.TOTAL CHARGES FOR 1 MONTH THAT HE WILL BE TAUGHT 4 TIMES PER
WEEK..
3.YOUR PHONE NUMBER…"

Thanks as i hope to read from you as soon a possible…
Regards..

Andy
————————-

I recognised it from your post so I thank you for alerting us to it. :)

Exactly! That’s it… Oh… I get them so often…

I’m soooooo tired of them! They don’t even bother to change anything to be more believable… Did anybody of you try to call them? I’m curious what happens then:)

I only communicated through e-mail. They act interested in your lessons, and then the conversation comes to the point that they can only pay by check… Of course, if you agree, the check sent to you is fake.

Yes, I replied out of curiosity and the reply was just what Yuriy said it was going to be… here is what they sent:

—————-
Hello ,
Thank you for the email, and more so i am glad the way you have kept me posted on the (tutoring) and more so you have accepted your offer and its okay by me,

I will make contacts with my son concerning the arrangement of the tutoring which he told me is ok by him and i want you to know that i am going to pay for month which is $320 also i want you to know that my client who is in italywill be sending you a check of $3200 which i want you to know that the rest of the money will be used to get accomodation beside your location and any other arrangement for the lesson,as soon as you get the check cash you will deduct cost of price of the lesson and send remaing balance to my NANNY.

Full Name’
address.
state.
city.
code.
country.
phone number.

Regarding this kindly reconfirm your full information to receive the check so that payment can be able to made out intime.

Thanks and waiting to read from you.

Andy..
———————————-

Awesome….

Amazing how it’s the same formula you described Yuriy. :)

Yes be very careful. I have done a lot of independent work as a transcriptionist and I market myself and get a lot of scams emails too. Even the ones that seem legit you have to be careful, and I always try to get as much information as possible from someone before I do work for them because every time I get a new client it’s a little uncertain if they will actually pay. The general rule of thumb is if it seems to good to be true, or if you have to pay to get paid then it could be and most likely is bogus.

Oh also, you can tell them you only take certified money orders or paypal, don’t take personal checks unless you know the person.

Marco, this email you got is a nice one, I must say! When I got this message for the first time and I actually believed in that (almost 2 yrs ago) I exchanged with “Mr Professor Doctor Something” few emails, before I realized it’s a scam. Here you can see already how is it working…

Did any of you get lately a message saying about coming to Egypt or Nigeria to teach somebody’s family (a wife and children) and about all accommodation like that they will buy you a ticket and you will be living in there house or so? I got two messages like that, surprisingly similar. I am not sure who would actually fall for that but if it’s another part of the same story I have to say, they are evolving;)

My favorite is from the supposed doctor in Nigeria or other west African country, who wants “englisch lesons for his chidlren.” This “doctor,” by the way, is American…

Being new to Edufire, I am just seeing this thread, and I am pretty glad I did. I haven’t received any like this, but it is probably just a matter of time…EEK!

What I do at craigslist.org is only providing my eduFire page, and not giving the possibility to send me any emails.

Eerie! Just yesterday, I read about these scams for the very first time, and today, I was skyped about the price for an estimate of the price for 5 lessons a week, 20 lessons per month, and I now know that the perfect response is: “Why, I would be delighted to work with you. I just need you to know that I do not accept checks, and that the only form of payment I accept is Paypal, and I request payment IN ADVANCE.” That oughta nip things in the bud, eh???

This is a rather common occurrence when you list things on craigslist. They even warn people about it there. Every time I list something or sell something there I get those emails.. I even had an email sent to me when I was selling my daughter’s prom dress.. The guy was going to send me a money order well in excess of the sales price of course in order to reimburse me for shipping charges ;)….. If I would kindly just wire him the remaining amount he said was willing to trust me and that he was a busy man and didn’t have any time to waste… and by the time the bank realized that the money order was a fake I would be out the merchandise and the money I sent him……. give me a break it was a prom dress for crying out loud.. OH MY…. Now i just sit back and read with amusement at how creative they can be … When renting out my lower house I received an email from a woman in north Africa who said she was a dressmaker and wanted to move to the USA …. She thought my house sounded nice so she would randomly move here and start selling her dresses… She wanted to secure the lease and send me a few months rent.. her company would send me some money but there may be excess… by now I’m sure you gt the idea of the rest of the story…. be aware that money orders and bank checks are well known methods of payments from scammers…. PayPal or Western Union is really the only safe way to go …. Now its not only “let the buyer beware " in today’s world its "let the seller beware also”