I responded back to an ad on Craigslist and would like to know if this email is a scam?

[Nika]

Hello
Thanks for your email toward the Care Givers Job position i posted on Craigslist,I'm truly so sorry for the late response to your message,Is just that i have been so sick few days ago and i was unable to check on my mails and trying to treat my self but thank God am getting better now,It's a great opportunity to have your mail and i will be looking forward to read back from your prompt response. My Sister will be coming from (GROVELAND, CALIFORNIA) and she will be moving on 2nd of July 2013. she is 62 Years of age.120lbs and 5.8ft. She speaks English fluently.We really need you to be honest,trust worthy and patience on this Position. The work basis/duties are below.- You are to be checking on My Sister at least 4 times in a week for proper caring and to know how well about her health doing and i think you have little medical experience ?

- You will be earning $450 weekly handling this job properly.
- You will be driving her to hospital when she is needed for medical check up which should be at least twice in a month and if you don't know how to drive, you will hire a car for her.

Your working hrs are 9am to 12pm and in 3 days in a week,Monday,Wednesdy,Friday,You will be help her to clean all the surrounding of the house,go to phamacy to help her buy some drugs she will be needing and sometimes you can take her to the movies station to have some funs

-- That is your duties,And you will have to prescribe the convenient hours during each of this days which will not affect your other regular work in case you have one as this will be a part time work for you and if you want to live with her in the house for other assistance there will be no problem.So kindly provide me with the requested information below so that we can ensure the housing agent get her an apartment which will be more closer to your house and I hope about 7 miles will not be too far for you.Also we will be paying you the first week wages upfront via a Certified Check because you will help he
Sorry but some of the email was cut off here is the rest of it:

Also we will be paying you the first week wages upfront via a Certified Check because you will help her to get some medical tools like one touch basic machine,Acu-Check machine and test trips in any nearest pharmacy store around. So I want you to feed me back with the following details so that we can ensure you are ready for the work.


Full Name:
Full Mailing Address (not P..O.Box please):
City:
State:
Zip Code:
Age:
Cell Phone:
Home Phone:
Gender:
Marital Status:
Best Time To Call:
Present Job Status/Position:
Do you have criminal record,i mean any offense:


I will give you her living address once the Rental Agent find her a suitable house. Will be awaiting your email soonest and we can proceed as you can understand that the date is getting approach.

[Parrill Apple]

Sorry, it appears the end of the message got cut off. If you can post the rest of the message, I can give a better answer. So far that I was able to read, it does not sound like a scam, although there is the discrepancy with the first paragraph stating you will need to check on the person 4 times a week and the second paragraph detailing your work days to be only three times in the week. Are you supposed to check on her on a random day? Still, the job sounds reasonable for the pay, which is more than I would expect for a part time position, but still not so much as to be suspicious. Usually a scam makes an offer that appeals to a person's greed and is thus too good to be true.
If the requested information includes details which might allow a person to fake your identity, then I would suspect a scam. You would not get any check, but only compromise your information. On the other hand, if the information requested is reasonable because it is what you would provide to any employer, then there is no reason not to provide it.

Edit: So far, it looks reasonable. If it was a scam as another answerer suggested, which required you to send money to a housing agent, then you can always quit the job and refuse at that point, keeping your weeks pay for your trouble. You have the email as proof that you did not conspire to launder money, and thus are innocent until proven guilty. There is nothing anyone can do with that little bit of information about you, which people often post freely on facebook for all the world to see. There is no need to be paranoid or xenophobic.
Certainly I would object to the implication that you would be expected to use your own wages to purchase anything for your client. He or she should provide you with a business credit card for making such purchases or open an expense account. Such things can be negotiated in your response.
However all that is explicitly stated is that you will be paid in advance and you will assist. There is no requirement that you purchase anything using the money sent. That is your pay. It will be good to beware of any unlawful requests made of you, but thus far, there are none and it appears to be legitimate.

[quietPupil996]

If it is a scam then they ask for money for something or they ask you to pay out for stuff from your own pocket. They send a check to cover that.
However the check is always returned unpaid so as soon as I saw the reference to check I thought scam.
After all would you pay a total stranger a weeks wages upfront?

[Kittysue]

It's a scam - they will claim they cannot meet you before you start but will be sending you a check and want you to send money to the "housing agent" (the scammer using a fake company name) through Western Union or Moneygram

First of all NOBODY hires a caregiver they have never met in person unless it's through a reputable agency that runs full background checks on the carers
Second, NOBODY sends a check to anyone before they start a job

This is a money laundering scam that can land you in prison, it's not a caregiver job

DO NOT send your home address to anyone for any reason. Tell them that you are sorry but you will not accept any checks until you have met them in person and accepted the position. You cannot accept any position until you have met her sister and seen where she will be living

You can tell this is a Nigerian scam because of the way they capitalize words in the middle of a sentence (Sister, Position etc)

[john]

100%SCAM! Stay off the internet if looking for a job.

[wittytest373]

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 most of the "money" via Western Union or moneygram back to the scammer posing as the "Rental Agent" while you "keep" a small portion. 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.

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.

When you refuse to send him your cash he will send increasingly nasty and rude emails trying to convince you to go through with his scam. The scammer could also create another fake name and email address like "FBI@ gmail.com", "police_person @hotmail.com" or "investigator @yahoo.com" and send emails telling you the job is legit and you must cash the fake check and send your money to the scammer or you will face legal action. Just ignore, delete and block those email addresses. Although, reading a scammer's attempt at impersonating a law enforcement official can be extremely funny.

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.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

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 check cashing job", "fraud Western Union scam", "check mule moneygram scam" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims of this type of scam.

[Brianna]

I just got the same email for a job I looked at on Craigslist for Dayton, Ohio.
Definitely a scam. Stay away from this person.