I inquired about a job on craigslist and this is the email I received. My email marked it as spam and I am just curious if others think it is a scam. I don't want to get involved with anything that is risky! Attn: Hope you're having a pleasant day today, I am in search of dependable individual with a high pedigree to help me handle my Business errands. Do take time to go through this introductory mail and feel free to pass any questions on.PETER KING is My name. I have been a photographer for over 30 years and also has been teaching photography for 20 years. I bring a unique teaching style to students which will guarantee creative and fun learning by all student photographers while elevating them to new, exciting photographic heights that they have only dreamed of.I often conduct LIVE slide/talk lectures on Understanding Exposure, the Art of Seeing, Macro Photography and Photographing People throughout the USA,CANADA, Great Britain and Asia.At the moment, I am in a work-ship in the Great Britain.I will be here for a month after which I will fly down to TURKEY for a Live-slide/talk show lectures with some students. YOUR DUTIES AS MY PERSONAL ASSISTANT. While I am out of the states,I need some one who can stand in the gap for me.His/her duties will be: -To receive letters and mails on my behalf. -Receive Payments from clients who want to attend the forth coming workshops or Live shows. -Schedule appointments for me. -Book my flight tickets. Send letters and mails from my clients. This position is home-based and flexible part time job,you can be in any location you will be working from your home doing all the activities.All you need do is to check your emails twice daily and keep your phone on most times in case I might need to call you from anywhere I may be.I do have a number of things you could help me with this week if you will be available to start.This can act as a stable foundation to our working relationship.Let me know if you have any of the office equipment (If not),I will make arrangements to send them to your address Printer: Personal Laptop/Desktop: Internet Access: Scanner: Fax machine: Laminator: Paper Cutter: For proper review(since i am not available now to set up a face-to-face interview) supply out correctly the information below . FULL NAME : Full Street Address(Not PO Box) : City, State, Zip Code: Age: Present Occupation: Cell Phone Number: Home Phone Number: Email: Scanned copy of your IDYou can provide that later when you are employed) Note: It will be of added advantage if you can provide 2 references from your past employments. QUALIFICATION: -Educational background is not a criteria. -You must be Organized and able to take instructions well Dependable, Reliable, Trustworthy a must -Must have excellent English language skills (both spoken and written) -Have great work ethic and attitude, as well as people skills, pay-attention to detail, capable of multi- tasking, and works well understress at times. Benefits: - Yearly performance bonus - Paid vacation/sick/personal days - Medical benefits Salary: $400 weekly($1,600 monthly) Also,there will be compensation for efficiency and hard working. PETER KING Photography PETER KING
Other - Internet - 8 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
I would arrange a phone call before I gave him any of that information..
2 :
They ask for a lot of personal information, sounds weird ...
3 :
Yes this is most likely a scam, but you can always send an e-mail asking for a phone call or further feedback regarding the position. Do not give any information until you are certain this is not a scam! Easy ways to tell that this is a spam is that almost all proper nouns (names) are in all capital letters while the rest is properly written. This indicates that it is a "Fill in your specific information" letter and written by a bot or by someone who is being paid peanuts to send out as many of these forms as possible.
4 :
Yep. This is almost certainly a scapegoat scam. Check out what he's wanting you to do: "set up appointments", "take payments", "book flight tickets", "receive letters". All of these are all suspect to a fraudulent scheme to set you up, but specifically, no self respecting employer, freelancing or otherwise, would have you taking a clients payments. Think for a moment - why do you suppose he would want your name on all the transactions that occurred? If this guy is world famous, how come you've never heard his name? And what on earth is he doing on craigslist? More likely than not, he's running an illegal operation, possibly weapons, drug or human trafficking. And guess who gets arrested if his crimes surface with the FBI? You. I'm warning you, this is a trap, don't fall for it!
5 :
As someone else said, I'd call before giving any information. However, I do get the sense that this is a scam. He says that you will accept payments for him....in reality would you hire someone who you didn't even interview in person to accept your money, when you could have someone you know do that, or better yet have it set to go into an international account?! He will likely send you bad check(s) and have you cash them then send the money to him and perhaps even keep some yourself for payment. In the end you will be paying big time when the check bounces!
6 :
100% scam. There is no job. There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money. The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "secretary/assistant/accountant" and will demand you cash a large fake check sent on a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number and send 90-95% of the money via Western Union or moneygram back to the scammer posing as the "supply company" while you "keep" 5%-10%. When your bank realizes the check is fake and it bounces, you get the real life job of paying back the bank for the bounced check fees and all the bank's money you sent to an overseas criminal. Or the next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "assistant" and will demand you accept packages purchased with stolen credit cards at YOUR home address. Then you are suppose to use a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number to send the electronics, clothing and jewelry overseas. When the websites, credit card owners and UPS/FedEx discover the fraud, you get the real life job of paying back all of them. Then the local law enforcement comes knocking asking why are you fencing stolen merchandise for someone you never met, don't know their real life name and have no idea even what country they really live in. Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever. Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram. Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash. Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer. 6 "Rules to follow" to avoid most fake jobs: 1) Job asks you to use your personal bank account and/or open a new one. 2) Job asks you to print/mail/cash a check or money order. 3) Job asks you to use Western Union or moneygram in any capacity. 4) Job asks you to accept packages and re-ship them on to anyone. 5) Job asks you to pay visas, travel fees via Western Union or moneygram. 6) Job asks you to sign up for a credit reporting or identity verification site. Avoiding all jobs that mention any of the above listed 'red flags' and you will miss nearly all fake jobs. Only scammers ask you to do any of the above. No. Exceptions. Ever. For any reason. If you google "fake UK job", "fraud personal assistant Western Union scam" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims of this type of scam.
7 :
DO NOT reply for any reason. There is no real job - this is a criminal trying to get you involved in money laundering Here is the REAL Peter King photography - if you contact him by email he will confirm he has NOTHING to do with this scam http://peterkingphotography.com/ He is a British photographer. There is NO way he can employ or pay anyone in the US if he is not a - a registered business in the US b - has a US tax ID number c - has a merchant banking account to handle ALL financial transactions
8 :
Wow, I just got one of these in my email inbox as well. I always google the site, business, person, etc before I continue, so when I saw your question pop up on google, I knew it couldn't be a good sign. "He" sent me the same email, same words, same instructions. It is a scam most likely....how sad, huh? I hate the people who think it's fun to prey on us who are looking for jobs. Anyway, I wouldn't get back asap if I were you. The thing that tipped me off was the fact that he has no concept of how to type (unnecessary spaces between words and letters or no spaces at all), and how grammar works. A computer doesn't know these things, so it isn't a real man typing this. Keep looking, don't give up! =)
