Mary Phillips

I received the following from e-mail from Paula after she read about one of the many tutor scams…

I just read about one of your readers who was almost a victim of a tutor scam. I’m a student at (a California university) and was looking for a tutoring job. I came upon this job that looked wonderful. A woman wanted an English tutor for her 7 year old son from the Philippines, and she was willing to pay $80 per hour. My instincts told me that was way to high for a tutor, but I kept thinking maybe she is just really serious about her son learning English. She said she would pay me for the first two weeks. She would send me a money order for over $2000 by UPS and then have me wire the difference to the boy’s nanny. This was fishy and I was starting to worry because I sent my name, address and phone number to her. So I went online and looked up “tutor scams” and found the exact copy of the email “Mrs.Mary Phillips” had sent me. I sent her an email back saying I will not cash the check until I meet with her and her son fact to face. I’ll wait and see what happens. I’m glad that I listened to my guts. I hope others will, too.

The more people that send it in will the more people that hear about it. Thank you Paula.

And in case you’re caught in the middle of one of these scams and you’ve already given out your info I highly recommend calling your credit bureau and let them know that you may be an identity theft victim.