Victim Location 11236
Type of a scam Employment
I came into contact with this scammer through Indeed.com. And initially, because it was a site on Indeed, I suspected that the website would be secure, ensuring that people with poor intentions of scamming would not be able to access vulnerable employment-seekers. However, I’ve learned up to this point that if you want to ensure your safety (physically, financially, and mentally) – you have to do so yourself and not rely on others first. I applied to the job of a ‘Checker’ at a German-run grocery chain. A few days later, I received an email stating that I qualified and got an entire essay about the job (though it still managed to be vague). I am new to the job market so I did not really know how to spot an illegitimate opportunity. However, my mother was instantly suspicious of it from the little things (e.g. for one, it was a ‘mystery shopping’, work-at-home "job", I would receive a check of $1,970.65 in the mail to send to ‘foster homes to pay bills’ as a gift ($500 of which would be mine though I did nothing to earn it, might I add), there were no letter heads on company officials’ emails, grammatical errors, and repetition of words I (as though it was copied and pasted). However, what got me to start distrusting the legitimacy was the route taken to deliver the check as well as follow-up emails. The check was supposedly from a bank in Utah… but why was it being shipped from Wisconsin? I also, caught onto poor grammar in emails as though the person had only a decent grasp of English even though they were supposedly from Sydney, Australia and attended the University of Sydney… Moreover, after the day before yesterday, I accepted that this was a scam and stopped responding to their emails. But it was yesterday that I decided to report them for they decided to through away all of their grammar, email me back with no care for any capitalization, and say that they knew I had received the check but that I needed to deposit it ASAP because their "attorney" is "starting to ask questions". It seemed as though I was talking to an entirely different person then.