Victim Location 56515
Type of a scam Employment
I received a text message from an individual that said they got my information from www.care.com where I was registered for professional dog care. I responded to the message via email requesting information. This is what I received:
"Hello,
Thanks for your response, I am glad to read from you. I am a single Mother of two, David and Scott, they are 5 and 1+ years respectively .I attended Texas School for the Deaf where I achieved my highest qualification. I have my own business (Self Employed). I attend the catholic. We are in the process of relocating to your area. I am 38 and I am hard of hearing. I work based on the development and counseling of the deaf people in the community, I am moving to your area in few weeks with my adorable dog and I really need a honest and responsible care for my pet. Cookie he is cute and adorable(Golden Retriever) he is very friendly and playful.he is also very much comfortable with other dogs and cat too he enjoys being indoors with us. Going for walks Cookie is very favorite activity. he plays well with other dogs too. Cookie is house trained and crate trained….. and have contacted a suppliers for the dog Cage, toys, blankets,food,bed and other things. You will care for him starting 14th of March I will appreciate if you can tell me a few things about yourself and maybe attach one or two pictures of you, below are your duties:
House Sitting,Mail/Newspaper Retrieval,Watering Plants,Pet Sitting/walking,Daily Feeding
This could be a temporary/permanent job. It depends on what your schedule looks like but I do like to be sure if you are available the first month. I made some research on the wages for your service and I have decided to start with $400 per week and as time goes we can negotiate on a new pay as my dog get along with you.
I want to inform you that I have a seminar I will be attending to as soon as I arrive and will be having an interview section with you immediately I arrive with my Dog. Also I will like to include your pay to our payroll for the period just to have you booked down and secure for my Pet. I will be needing the following information below to issue out the check to you and I need your direct mobile number so i can text you in case I need to pass an urgent information:
Name:
Address:
City:
State:
Zip Code:
Phone #:
I have made some arrangements with the dog utility suppliers, so as soon as you get the payment, you will deduct your first week and have the rest sent to the dog utility suppliers as soon as the check clears, I hope my Dog will have the best of time while is in your care and I hope you will treat him right just like yours, attached is a picture of me kids & cookie.
Get back to me as I have a lot of issue to put in place prior to my arrival. I look forward to hearing back from you.
Thank you and God bless"
I did not download the thumbnail size pic of a mom and two kids and one of a dog. I also did not respond further, and contacted care.com both by email through the site and by phone.
1. I never received a response by email from care.com
2. I was not able to speak with anyone directly in the fraud department when I called care.com, they had to call me back. Since they called back several hours later (and I do a lot of my work on the phone) it was difficult to get in touch with them.
3. I called again the next day and asked to speak to the fraud department directly (was told no). I explained I could not wait for hours with a free phone line, and asked for someone to call me back within 30 minutes, which they did.
4. Return call from the care.com fraud department: After explaining the situation I asked if someone had looked at my account to see who had viewed it and match it to the phone number and email address of the scammer I provided. The care.com agent said "they didn’t know if anyone had looked at my account, but usually it was from someone getting my information off the site who was not a member." I explained that my phone number was only visible to members, to which the agent responded the scammer must have gotten my number some other way and just used the name care.com. I again asked is someone was looking at my account due to my specific complaint, and was not given a direct answer.
5. I asked if care.com had been hacked and lost any data and was told "not to my knowledge." Later in the conversation the agent admitted that this text scam was a frequent problem and care.com was working to improve security on the site. What?
6. ScamPulse.com: Because of the details on the scam messages I received, I do believe the scammers got my personal information from care.com, either by registering as members or by hacking the site. A review of sites like sitejabber.com show that this is a very frequent and serious problem on care.com. I feel this business did NOTHING to resolve my complaint.
I have taken my account off the site, and I hope an agency like the ScamPulse.com would think seriously about the rating of this business.