tutor scam

I received the following e-mail from reader Krysta who encountered the old tutor scam…

This guy’s emails were extremely fishy with some odd details. I looked up reports on tutor scams on craigslist and found them very similar to the ones already reported. Then I asked myself what is a UN peacekeeper doing in Eastern Oregon? Here is the scam:

“I am pleased with whatever arrangement you could have made now concerning the hours to be having him the tutorial.Is name is Mike and he speaks danish and alil bit english language but not fluently.Okay according to the distances i think i will inform the nanny about it and she can be bringing him to you for the lesson wherever you have been choosing to be comfortable for you ,and this will bring him closer to your family and emulate a good morales from them.I would like to you get prepared starting with him by the middle of the month and i think that will be sometimes next two week.But as a teen tutor you should realize a better time table and housr to be taking kids and will be welcome with me.Nevermind,i will be making a payment of a month for this calaculated three hours every week,i guess it would be a cost fee of $720 by my own calaculation here and would like to make this payment out to you in a check,such that i will not finish with the money cos we have just been paid our royalties.i worked under the united nation as a peace keeping force. while i have lil time to visit home this time around while mike has been staying with his grandma before i finally take him to a nanny.Furthermore,i may required you not to recommend Fridays though, because all children have the concept of “Its friday, no more school!” and tend to have a hard time concentrating on fridays. And i would want you to give me a weekly reports and send me copies of your lesson plans for each lesson before or after the time of the lesson through the nanny.Nevertheless, I have also attached a picture of my son Mike with the nanny so that you will know how she and mike looks when you set to meet.I wish i have make myself cleared to you now and hoping you will take up this offer , Because i have made contacts with my son concerning the arrangement of the tutoring which he told me is ok by him because i always want the best for my son in life.i will be looking forward to hearing from you again.i would await the your information, so i can proceed on the payment asap.

kindest regard,
Mike Snr.”

I guess Eastern Oregon has a problem with Somali pirates or something. ‘Is name is Mike’? Wow. This guy wasn’t even trying.

Good morales? Pedro Morales? The first triple crown WWF title holder?

I’m curious to know if he actually included a picture of Mike Jnr. and what the picture looked like.

I guess he was waiting for the response before setting up his proposed victim for the fake check scam. Luckily Krysta was smart enough to do her research.

Tutor targeted by scammers after posting ad on Craigslist:

Just another article about the tutor scam. This time it’s out of St. Peters, Missouri but I wanted to highlight two things mentioned in the article.

First let’s hear from a U.S. Postal Inspector…

“There’s just no legitimate reason why someone should send you a check or money order for more than the amount request,”

The second one is from the tutor himself…

“The majority of the contacts I got of Craigslist were similar to this, as opposed to the ones I would call legitimate,”

Consider both of those things before doing business on craigslist.

I received the following e-mail from Ben who noticed an ad on craigslist about someone needing an English tutor…

I didn’t fall for this scam, and it’s clearly a repeat or new take on an old theme, but here’s the email I got after replying to an ad asking for an english tutor on the Raleigh craigslist from johwilli03@gmail.com (”John Williams”)

“Hello,

Thanks for the email,my son will be coming for a vacation in the U.S,and i want him to be busy throughout because he is a bit playful.I just want to know maybe he can always come to you and you can be his tutor so he can learn from you.I want my kid to partake for a tutorial class.He is just 15 yrs old,I have told him concerning the arrangement of the tutoring and he told me it is okey with him.I want you to know that i am going to pay for 1 month,which should be $50.00/hr(which i have in mind).And i am planning that you will be teaching him 3 times a week,which is 1hr per day,so get back to me with the total fee for the subject English language, when you will be available to teach him during the week ?

I also want to inform you that my son don’t live in the states, he live in Philippine. so my Son will be arriving the states on 10th of NOVEMBER 2008 then the tutorial class can start by 15th NOVEMBER.I want him to study more about what his needs to know while he is in the states. I will also like to inform you that my client in state will be sending you an Over-payment inform of Us money orders or Certified check for the lesson fee, and Also to inform you that i will be paying the Nanny that will be taking care of my son’s welfare while he is there forthe lesson, Please for the nature of your job and for the good relationship between Your self and my son i would want to entrust you with this money because am not presently in the States, i would have liked to take care of all this myself but since the payment would be coming to you from my
associates , i want you to please kindly be of help by cashing the money and deducting only your teaching fee and send the remaining fund to his Nanny/ Guardian / house keeper so my son can be in good health and well taken care of before my arrival. Regarding this, kindly send your full information to receive the payment so it can be made out to you on-time. I hope i can trust you to be a very good teacher for my Son’s good academics performance.I hope i can count on you for the tutorial and the money to be sent to the Guardian.

Please reply with

Full Name On Payment,
Full residential address,
Phone numbers and email address, so that one of my client can issue
the payment to you ASAP.

Best Regards,
John”

Wow, this guy explains the whole scam up front. I’d like to know if some people from other countries actually do legitimate business using the third party payment plan like this. Somehow I doubt it.

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.

I got this e-mail from reader Lee who almost got taken by the fake check/tutor scam…

Here’s another incident to add to the list.

Over the past couple of weeks I was in touch with someone claiming to be an Italian business person who was sending a son here to learn better English and needed a tutor.

The odd twist here is that after the check arrived I was to send the remainder of the large amount to a person, who it turned out to be was a real person.

He/she gave me a name and address, so I looked her up on the Internet and called. She felt comfortable calling me back. It turns out that nearly the same thing happened to her recently, but the fake check was identified by her bank.

My question is…how were they going to get the money if she is a real person?

Odd…but I checked it out and now have a souvenir of how gullible I can be…yet I didn’t have to pay the heavy cost of the lesson that might have been.

Thank you,

Lee

It sounds like someone in Nigeria slipped up on how the scam works. Lucky for you their stupidity was your gain. And I wouldn’t say you were completely gullible. You actually stopped before cashing that check.