Question
Does this sound like a scam?
"Thanks for your email and respond toward the house Cleaner position, I'm Aspen Cage and my wife' s name is Sharon Cage, she's 6 months pregnant. We are relocating to your area from London, United Kingdom. We are coming there to do some contract basis with United States Environmental Protection Agency on a private research work. However, we need someone who will help us to take care of the house by doing some house cleaning work while we are off to work. Someone that will also help in running some errands. We will be offering you $400.00 weekly, We will need your services twice a week at any suitable time of yours, between Monday and Friday. If you believe you are fit for this position in as much you will prove yourself to be a reliable and good person, My administrative assistant based in the States will be handling the payment and some other expenses, he will be the one that will be taking care of your payment, I will instruct him to issue the first week payment before my arrival so as to secure your service once I hear from you today. I will advise my administrative assistant to make out the payment of your first week of your service to you before my arrival, you will be receiving an overpayment bank check which you will deduct your pay for the first week and you will be using the remaining to buy foodstuffs and other things needed in the house, you will getting this foodstuff on the day of our arrival which is 10th October 2009. Actually our flights from England will arrive at nights so you will be getting the foodstuff in the morning and making all other preparations. I will also instruct my administrative assistant to mail the keys of the apartment to you so that you can do all other necessary preparations before we arrive, I will also email you the shopping list. You have to get all this shopping before our arrival so that we won't have to start running around when we arrive.
2 months ago - 3 answers
Best Answer
Chosen by Asker
"you will be receiving an overpayment bank check which you will deduct your pay for the first week" That's the scam, right there. The rest of the email is just window dressing and lies. The cheque will be a fake and after receiving it there'll suddenly be a reason for you to return the money to them, but you can still take your pay as "compensation" So you cash the cheque and wire the balance back - it'll be sent by Western Union (or MoneyGram) so beloved by scammers - fast, electronic and paperless. Once collected, it's gone. WU transfers can be collected anywhere in the world irrespective of their written destination - all you need are suitably 'friendly' WU staff on your nearest 'Westy desk' - and scammers have these - and the transfer is yours, less a little backhander to your WU 'friend'. Once the cheque bounces - and it will - the bank manager will get cross with you and ruin your credit rating. Those chaps with the Ray-Banns may also drop by for a chat as well. Oh, and there's the little matter of the value of the transfer that you now have to pay back to the bank. Aren't scammers wonderful people.... Job sites (and other general advert sites like Craigslist) are laden with such scams (scammers have email extraction software that will allow them to harvest email addresses from e.g. open forum type job sites where job hunters may have posted an email address). The adverts are usually long winded and can be well written although some are beyond a joke... Look for: Vagueness with destination: "arriving in your area" Fancy job titles to garner trust in the responding candidate Good wages for a simple task Advance payment of the wages by cheque and not bank transfer There are more pointers but these are the basic ones. www.scamwarners.com can help you if you aren't sure Hope this helps Luck
Source(s)
Scambaiter www.419eater.com Scamwarner www.scamwarners.com
by Alan M
2 months ago
Asker's Rating: 
Other Answers
YES!
by Matt C- 2 months ago
You have received the opening letter to one of the Nigerian style fraudulent check scams. A few other versions of the same letter appear in the links below. Notice that the main changes are the names and dates. Don't respond and don't give any of your personal information. Don
by DON- 2 months ago