Thread: Possible teaching scam?

Have any of you teachers ever gotten an email from someone who is coming to the states and wants you to teach their child?

This email is weird. The English grammar is not good and the words are arranged somewhat like someone who is not a native English speaker. She says her name is Mrs. Smith Evans (what kind of first and last name is that? It sounds like two last names and no first name) and her son wants to learn belly dance. She wants to know what kind of payment I will accept and emailed me a phone number in the UK to contact her with. (why would I just not email her back?)

Anyways, this just seems very odd. Any similar experiences?

Lisa

It's definitely a scam, and it's one of those "You know you've made it when..." rites of passage ;)

Yep, I recieved that email a month or so ago, and thought something was fishy....lol...so I asked my friend who also said the same thing as beafarhana.

Get them all the time. Scam.

It used to be 'fly to another state and dance at a wedding,' now it's 'teach my kid who's coming to the states.'

What they have in common: They try to appeal to your greed by offering you a HUGE job and asking you to name your price (or offering you a ridiculous amount of money). They never tell you why YOU specifically have been chosen for such an honor. They're barely personalized at all, obviously dropping your name and city (and sometimes the word 'bellydance') into a form letter that could be sent to anyone.

How the scam works: The scammer will 'accidentally' send you a check for thousands of dollars more than you're owed. The excess was actually supposed to go to (the travel agent/caterer/whoever). Could you please wire the difference immediately to that person or the whole deal will be ruined? Once you've wired the funds, you learn the check you deposited was fraudulent and your bank account is now negative $XX,000.

My partner has an apartment he rents and we get the same kind of thing when we're advertising it. E-mail from somebody who offers to rent it without having seen it, offering to pay the deposit up front plus excessive amount of rent. First two months rent, or maybe they just want to stay for 4 months and they'll pay for all of it now, or something. They're moving from outside the US to start school or a new job or some such thing and they're in a big hurry to secure a place to live. If we played along, they would send a counterfeit cashier's check, then after a few days cancel their plans and say, "Oh you can keep the deposit but please refund the rent money, and I need it desperately, it's an emergency, I'm in transit, so please wire the money to me right away!" We have some friends who also rent an apartment who actually got taken in by one of these things. They lost a couple thousand dollars they didn't have in the first place and had to set up a payment plan with their bank to replace the money.

Now just recently we saw a bizarre new twist. We had an ad for the apartment on Craigslist with just a phone number, no e-mail. A person called up my partner by TTY relay call (that's the phone service for hearing impaired persons where you converse through an intermediary and the hearing impaired caller is keyboarding). "She" gave him a Yahoo e-mail address and asked us to send photos of the apartment, which we did, and then the reply we got was one of these scam messages. That was creepy.
Rosette

Yep, this is a common scam.

My cousin actually fell for one of these - not a teaching scam, but she was selling really expensive chairs on Craig's List. She got so far as to deposit the over-paying check, and then got suspicious so she waited for a few weeks - and lo and behold, the money dissappeared from her account. Bad check. She was almost out a few thousand dollars.

I've heard of people getting similar too-good-to-be-true offers for items they're selling on e-bay.

The universal theme (and giant red flag) is the appeal to your greed.

Originally Posted by danielabellydance

Yep, this is a common scam.

My cousin actually fell for one of these - not a teaching scam, but she was selling really expensive chairs on Craig's List. She got so far as to deposit the over-paying check, and then got suspicious so she waited for a few weeks - and lo and behold, the money dissappeared from her account. Bad check. She was almost out a few thousand dollars.

how does the money disappearing from your cousin's account just because she deposit the checque?

Thanks everyone!

I figured it was a scam but it was not like the usual ones I get. Like ...Someone from Egypt or similar has some family member in some tradgedy and needs help to get money or get to the USA, etc. Please send money to them. Or please come dance at some far away place.

Does anyone know where all these are originating from? From here or some other country?

Lisa

my mum received phone call from a man who pretended to be my brother. on the phone he cried and said in soft crying voice, 'mum i'm in trouble i gambled too much now they're going to kill me mum please help me'. my mum said for a moment her heart broke and then she thought better and hang up so as to call my real brother.

Originally Posted by wingaki

how does the money disappearing from your cousin's account just because she deposit the checque?

Because the check was no good.

Say they agree to pay you $2000. Then you get a call or note saying they've 'accidentally' overpaid you and sent you a check -- maybe even a cashier's check -- for $5,000 and they need you to wire the extra $3000 to someone else (they sent you the money that was supposed to be the deposit and rent for their child's apartment, or whatever the story is).

So a $5,000 check arrives, you deposit it and wire $3000 to someone. A week later, your bank contacts you and says the $5,000 has been Deducted back out of your account because that check was fraudulent -- a forgery.

this is a scam. I used to get them all the time, till I moved email addresses. Delete them, forget them

Originally Posted by wingaki

my mum received phone call from a man who pretended to be my brother. on the phone he cried and said in soft crying voice, 'mum i'm in trouble i gambled too much now they're going to kill me mum please help me'. my mum said for a moment her heart broke and then she thought better and hang up so as to call my real brother.

How creepy it would be to get a prank call like that.

Lisa