Fishy Craigslist Reply

edart1

My wife is looking to tutor kids this summer. She posted an ad on Craigslist offering services and got a reply within 30 minutes of posting it. I didn't think the guy was requesting any sensitive information but just had a funny feeling about it. Does this sound legit to anyone? Thanks!

Hello,I am (name removed),My son is coming for an holiday in your area,His name is Andre,14 years.I want him to be busy in the day. I have decided to let him attend your lesson for 1 hours in a day in the morning or time that you will be chance.i want you to calculate the cost of 1 hours each day for Mon,Wed & Fri for the whole 1 Month and send me the total cost,i will be paying you with Certified check,so get back to me with your cost.I have someone(Nanny) that will always drive him down to your house or lesson venue.Kindly get back to me with.
1.YOUR CHARGE FOR 1 HOUR.
2.TOTAL CHARGES FOR 1 MONTH THAT HE WILL BE TAUGHT 3 TIMES PER WEEK.
3.FULL NAME AND ADDRESS WITH ZIP CODE.
4.YOUR PHONE NUMBER.Don't hesitate to e-mail with your total charges.
Thanks and looking to hearing from you soon. With Best Regards.
(name removed)

Impersonator

It definitely sounds fishy, it's weirdly formatted and is poorly worded. I wouldn't trust it.

NotYou

Looks fine to me. It's not like he asked for anything weird. Why wouldn't you pursue it?

English might not be his first language.

Esh

This is REALLY fishy. Insist on cash. You won't hear from him again, I guarantee. The "certified check" just sets off some serious alarm bells.

Impersonator

Esh wrote: »

This is REALLY fishy. Insist on cash. You won't hear from him again, I guarantee. The "certified check" just sets off some serious alarm bells.

ceres

I wouldn't just dismiss it because it really could be legit, he doesn't ask for routing info or anything. Just reply saying that you're sorry, but for various reason you will need to insist upon cash, possibly on a session-by-session basis. If he says CHECK ONLY then you get to say "I'm sorry but we won't be able to do business" and move on.

CrossBuster

Definitely fishy. Whenever I try to sell something on Craigslist, I almost always get a response similar to that: broken English, weird formatting, insisting on some convoluted procedures for what should be a simple transaction, offering to pay with a "certified check" (a money order is also a big red flag). Why would anyone have a problem paying cash at the end of each session? Or did your wife, in the ad, mention something about billing at the end of each month?

If you think it might be legit, and want to know for sure, just send a reply telling him that payment is cash only, with that term being non-negotiable.

Chances are you won't get another email from them.

Hahnsoo1

If you put "Certified Check" and "Scam" in any search engine, you'll find a hundred reasons why you don't accept certified checks for various transactions.

Zeromus

Hahnsoo1 wrote: »

If you put "Certified Check" and "Scam" in any search engine, you'll find a hundred reasons why you don't accept certified checks for various transactions.

This.

As a matter of fact, Craigslist itself has a page about this: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams

Esh

Zeromus wrote: »

Hahnsoo1 wrote: »

If you put "Certified Check" and "Scam" in any search engine, you'll find a hundred reasons why you don't accept certified checks for various transactions.

This.

As a matter of fact, Craigslist itself has a page about this: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams

Here's a perfect example from that link...

Hello,

I am looking for caring and honest person to watch my 3 years old daughter while I work, during our stay in the state and a friend introduced craiglist.com to me, I was searching on Childcare Babysitter, when your Ad post pumped up as a Childcare and Babysitter, am interested in your service as my babysitter/Childcare.. My Little daughters is (Mellina ) , I would like you to watch over her while i am at work in your Location , I reside in United Kingdom,I will be coming to the States in about two weeks time , Cos I just got a contract with Boss Perfume fashion industry down there, I work as a model and the contract will last for a month, the duration of our service wil be from 10am to 5pm, monday thru friday, I would like to know if she will be taken care of in your childcare centre/Home, or the hotel room where i would be lodging, It's Okay by me, any of this ways.

My little daughter (Mellina ) is 3 years old, I will be waiting patiently for your email indicating the cost of everything,I mean the price for your service,how long you will be available to take care of her,how much u charge per week. she is just three years old as i have said earlier and i will be glad to update you and make the payment in advance to show you how serious i am. So please get back to me as soon as you can if you will be able to handle her and take very good care of her for me.

Email me back
Your's faithfully

Basically, don't even reply asking for cash.

DrFrylock

Yep. They will do something like send you a certified check for more than you asked for, and ask for cash back (only for you to find out the original check was bogus) or they will send you a check and then renege, asking you for the full amount back after it has "cleared" only for you to find out that there really wasn't any money behind it.

Jasconius

It's fake. Broken pluralization, broken grammer, broken punctuation, certified check.

Delete and move on.

Nocren

I've gotten two of these types of ads. One for selling my couch (Really? You're going to send me a check and then once it's cleared, have someone come by and pick it up?) and another for a laptop repair job.

Since it was just a contract-type repair job I wasn't too put off by it, but something didn't feel right. Namely the fact that it was almost the exact same form as the furniture reply. And the fact that they never could give me a straight answer or meet me face to face. Plus the email domain was pretty clever, it was Asacomputersinc.com for the domain, but asacomputers.com is the legit company. The former just linked to a blank homepage.

BoGs

My fiancee did tutoring ALWAYS in public places library, coffee shops and if it was a bit sketchy I would go along on the first meet up.

FYI

edart1 wrote: »

My wife is looking to tutor kids this summer. She posted an ad on Craigslist offering services and got a reply within 30 minutes of posting it. I didn't think the guy was requesting any sensitive information but just had a funny feeling about it. Does this sound legit to anyone? Thanks!

Hello,I am (name removed),My son is coming for an holiday in your area,His name is Andre,14 years.I want him to be busy in the day. I have decided to let him attend your lesson for 1 hours in a day in the morning or time that you will be chance.i want you to calculate the cost of 1 hours each day for Mon,Wed & Fri for the whole 1 Month and send me the total cost,i will be paying you with Certified check,so get back to me with your cost.I have someone(Nanny) that will always drive him down to your house or lesson venue.Kindly get back to me with.
1.YOUR CHARGE FOR 1 HOUR.
2.TOTAL CHARGES FOR 1 MONTH THAT HE WILL BE TAUGHT 3 TIMES PER WEEK.
3.FULL NAME AND ADDRESS WITH ZIP CODE.
4.YOUR PHONE NUMBER.Don't hesitate to e-mail with your total charges.
Thanks and looking to hearing from you soon. With Best Regards.
(name removed)

Casual

Looks like it was written by a spambot. The message just has the look of a template. I wouldn't even get back to "him".

Bionic Monkey

Yeah, I offered computer repair over Craigslist this last winter while I was unemployed, and I got several of these offering incredible opportunities fixing dozens of laptops that would pay me via certified cheque as soon as I sent them a cost. Total scam.

illig

scam. they'll send you a check for several $K over the amount, and ask you to send them back the difference

good way to lose a bunch of cash

Darksier

As a private tutor I recommend payment per session and to ALWAYS teach in public. You should scout out an area and use it as a meeting place to negotiate rate in person. If they don't want to show up in person then drop em.

zkt

Sad how craigslist has gone so far downhill

MichaelLC

Most libraries have rooms you can reserve to study.

Your wife may want to check that out. And yeah, total scam. "lesson venue"? Really? Sounds like a bot.

Astayonix

edart1 wrote: »

My wife is looking to tutor kids this summer. She posted an ad on Craigslist offering services and got a reply within 30 minutes of posting it. I didn't think the guy was requesting any sensitive information but just had a funny feeling about it. Does this sound legit to anyone? Thanks!

Hello,I am (name removed),My son is coming for an holiday in your area,His name is Andre,14 years.I want him to be busy in the day. I have decided to let him attend your lesson for 1 hours in a day in the morning or time that you will be chance.i want you to calculate the cost of 1 hours each day for Mon,Wed & Fri for the whole 1 Month and send me the total cost,i will be paying you with Certified check,so get back to me with your cost.I have someone(Nanny) that will always drive him down to your house or lesson venue.Kindly get back to me with.
1.YOUR CHARGE FOR 1 HOUR.
2.TOTAL CHARGES FOR 1 MONTH THAT HE WILL BE TAUGHT 3 TIMES PER WEEK.
3.FULL NAME AND ADDRESS WITH ZIP CODE.
4.YOUR PHONE NUMBER.Don't hesitate to e-mail with your total charges.
Thanks and looking to hearing from you soon. With Best Regards.
(name removed)

:!: :!: I can tell you unequivocably that this response IS a phishing scam. My husband advertised tutorial services on CL approx 2 years ago, and he got a similar response. He told me about it, and right from the beginning, I knew it sounded weird. He too said, "Well, they're not asking for any sensitive information," but I insisted he do an IP trace route of the responder, and it turned out (surprise, surprise) that the IP address was tracked back to Lagos, Nigeria. This is a very standard 419 scam.

Here's how it works: The scammer would have used the information provided to doctor a fake cashier's check and sent it to you (or your wife). You would have deposited it into your bank account, and assumed the check cleared. Then you would have wired the money to the scammers in "France (or whatever place they claim to be from)" and you'd never hear from them again. No lessons, no income. Then a few days later, you'd discover that the cashier's check was "raised" and the bank would hold you liable for not only the money you're out from the wire transfer (which you'd never see again; now in the hands of the scammers), but that you also owe the bank for the entirety of the fake cashier's check.

CL even warns posters on almost every page of their site to beware of money order, wire transfer, and cashier check transaction requests. Even in the email she probably got from CL with the person responding, it no doubt has a warning about this kind of behavior because it's a scam. However, even if you tell them to shove off or do not respond, you'll get residual emails of a similar format for at least the next couple of months (since they know your email is active). If you want more details about my specific situation, and how we avoided it, I'd be more than happy to share with you via PM.

MichaelLC

Astayonix wrote: »

If you want more details about my specific situation, and how we avoided it, I'd be more than happy to share with you via PM.Please provide.
1.address of your residencse.
2.family and surnames of all peoples aboding there.
3.bank routing numbers for all people (im sorry,is requirement of the boards we are comuniques on.

edart1

Thanks for all the advice ya'll. Googling his email address brought up some threads from other forums asking the same thing so I'm going to err on the side of caution here.

Astayonix

MichaelLC wrote: »

Astayonix wrote: »

If you want more details about my specific situation, and how we avoided it, I'd be more than happy to share with you via PM.Please provide.
1.address of your residencse.
2.family and surnames of all peoples aboding there.
3.bank routing numbers for all people (im sorry,is requirement of the boards we are comuniques on.

LOL! Fixed per above.

Improvolone

edart1 wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice ya'll. Googling his email address brought up some threads from other forums asking the same thing so I'm going to err on the side of caution here.

This isn't "erring on the side of caution" this is clearly a scam with no chance of it being real.

saltiness

Craigslist + check = scam. Every time.

3drage

He's going to send you a check for more than the amount you asked and then ask if you can reimburse the overage. The check will show up as counterfiet and you'll be left to pay the full amount.

joshofalltrades

Now that it's been established this is a scammy scam of the highest scam order, I would strongly advise using a website other than Craigslist. Lots of places have local garage sale type groups on Yahoo, and in my experience they are much less prone to spam and scam than an open site like Craigslist is. In fact, I've made some good money off of our local garage sale group.

Craigslist is for male prostitutes, scams/MLM geese and beggars nowadays. Sad but true.

Darkewolfe

Craigslist isn't terrible. You just have to throw out each and every response that seems even remotely fishy. Occasionally you'll hit something good, though, and you can certainly use it as an additional tool when trying to accomplish something.

But yeah. Person who is out of town for some reason + cashier's check + broken english = Nigeria.

mully

This happened to my Step-Brother (though he was craigslisting looking for a student roommate), as described earlier - cheque sent with the amount much over the cost, and then they demanded the difference back. Be careful. There is no problem with responding and telling him that you require cash upfront.

Casual

Like others have said you really shouldn't reply to this at all. You don't even want them to know they have an active email. Just delete it.