For a Good Laugh . . . Total Spam!

[momofboys]

I have an account on Care.come & although I have gotten two clients through there I have never run across Spam. . .until now. I applied for a position that sounded easy enough (caring for a 2 year old girl for 6 1/2 hrs a day). The "parent" wrote me back today & I had to laugh when I read it because it sounded just like those scammy junk e-mails you get where they try to tell you a long, lost relative has died & you inherit all their money. What do you guys think. . . I guess my question is what one earth is the scam. . . what is he gaining. I think I will e-mail him back & play dumb just out of curiosity!

Good Day To You:
It was really nice to hear back from you and this really shows how responsible and hard working you are. It also portrays your love for child and this as convinces me that my Daughter is going to be in a safe hand. I got your Number, i should have call you but too busy to call for now, Am always with my laptop now so it will be the best if we communication by mail or i can also chat from my yahoo or msn, As the job stated, You are going to start taking care of my Daughter from now on if you really ready, Presently am at the Site working really hard, i will be here for 3 weeks before returning home, but i will like to fix everything before my return i also have some Plumbing work and i have contact the Plumbing Company ready, i want you to start work immediately after my arrival so please take off your posting from the care.com website, CAUSE I HAVE ALSO TELL THEM TO DETELE MY ACCOUNT WHEN AFTER I CONTACTED YOU.

You will start on the 25th of Sept, I want you to get back to me with your reference, I pay $500 pa week for my sister that babysit her but she was called back to her first job that is why i need you to care for her, I will like to pay you $550 / $600 par week, you will work Monday -- Friday from 10:00am to 4:30pm, also you can spend a night with us if you think you can"t make it home OR I can always bring her to your place at 8:30am and come back at 4:00pm everyday it will still be okay with me, My Daughter name is Terresa she is 2 years old, she is young and lovely,she has no allergy at all and does not have schedule for anything such as nap and I am definitely sure you are going to like her when you start babysitting her and then you are going to know me better as well. I promise to increase your weekly Salary if you take very good care of my daughter, I will be really look to hear from you soon and let me know if you are okay with this GET BACK TO ME IN MY CONTRACT EMAIL HERE IS IT _______________

[katie]

SHADY!!!! Really really shady!

[TGT09]

SCAM! And, I just went through this at the beginning of the summer only mine was a little more "educated" sounding. I was naive enough to think mine was real and luckily I realized at the last minute that it was a hoax. Trust me, he would later reveal that he will send you a check for the full amount (of whatever time frame you talk about being paid for) and then you in return need to cash the check and re-write a check to another person for "something". So you are out the money when the check bounces.

WELL, that's sort of how mine went and mine wasn't on care.com, it was on sittercity.com

I no longer trust the website because they didn't address my concerns in a timely manner so I actually only use care.com. I have gotten 2 families from there.

[thatgagirl]

yeah it is a scam, what he will do when you write back is say to ensure to you that he is serious he is gonna send you some money.... When you get it he will say ooops i overpaid, please give me/send me back $$$ and keep the extra as a bonus for the hassle. You send him that money back and then the bank informs you that the check/money order etc was not real and you are out what you sent him and anything you spent...

[marniewon]

That is a really strange one! I'm not sure what he could possibly gain either. Is that amount of money around what you make there per week? Because here it's about 5 times the amount I would get for one full time child per week.

[momofboys]

yeah it is a scam, what he will do when you write back is say to ensure to you that he is serious he is gonna send you some money.... When you get it he will say ooops i overpaid, please give me/send me back $$$ and keep the extra as a bonus for the hassle. You send him that money back and then the bank informs you that the check/money order etc was not real and you are out what you sent him and anything you spent...

I figured it was something like that. I already notified Care.com about it. We'll see if his "ad" disappears!

[TGT09]

That is a really strange one! I'm not sure what he could possibly gain either. Is that amount of money around what you make there per week? Because here it's about 5 times the amount I would get for one full time child per week.

I was being offered around the same amount and no it's nowhere near what we get for care.....almost 5x's that much here too.

[momofboys]

That is a really strange one! I'm not sure what he could possibly gain either. Is that amount of money around what you make there per week? Because here it's about 5 times the amount I would get for one full time child per week.

No, not at all! I charge between $20-25/day per child!

[momofboys]

SCAM! And, I just went through this at the beginning of the summer only mine was a little more "educated" sounding. I was naive enough to think mine was real and luckily I realized at the last minute that it was a hoax. Trust me, he would later reveal that he will send you a check for the full amount (of whatever time frame you talk about being paid for) and then you in return need to cash the check and re-write a check to another person for "something". So you are out the money when the check bounces.

WELL, that's sort of how mine went and mine wasn't on care.com, it was on sittercity.com

I no longer trust the website because they didn't address my concerns in a timely manner so I actually only use care.com. I have gotten 2 families from there.

This was posted on Care.com in the Columbus, Ohio area.

[TGT09]

This was posted on Care.com in the Columbus, Ohio area.

Mine went so far to even send me a picture of her and her twins. She claimed to be a deaf mother with boy/girl twins. Looking back, I laugh because I was a moron! At the time, when I realized what was going on....I was LIVID!

[momofboys]

Mine went so far to even send me a picture of her and her twins. She claimed to be a deaf mother with boy/girl twins. Looking back, I laugh because I was a moron! At the time, when I realized what was going on....I was LIVID!

Mad for you Did they send you a check to cash?

[TGT09]

Mad for you Did they send you a check to cash?

She UPS'd me a check but for some reason she said that UPS couldn't find my address. Odd#1. Then, when I finally realized things weren't right it was because she didn't show up for our "interview".

She was "from" Texas and was coming here for a 2 week deaf convention.

It's all very stupid sounding when I type it out now but it honestly seemed "real" at the time. I'm just glad I didn't get wrangled into the $3500+ check that she was sending me plus fees for the bounced check.

[MyAngels]

Thanks for posting this. I don't use either of those sites at all, but it's good to know about this type of scam anyway. I can see how easy it would be to fall for this, at least until they send you a huge check to cash. I guess it goes to the saying - if it looks too good to be true it probably is!

[momofboys]

Care.com removed him thank goodness! I would think it would be obvious that is was a scam BUT his original post (not the e-mail he sent me) sounded legit, his verbage was much better than the awkward wording he used in his e-mail. Glad they cancelled his account!

[TGT09]

Care.com removed him thank goodness! I would think it would be obvious that is was a scam BUT his original post (not the e-mail he sent me) sounded legit, his verbage was much better than the awkward wording he used in his e-mail. Glad they cancelled his account!

Good to hear! I just don't use sittercity.com anymore because of how they responded to my acquisation like they didn't give a hoot. If they would have responded like they were sorry that it had slipped through then I might feel different about them. Care actually sent out a message a few weeks after that, warning about that exact situation so I knew I had been duped for real and not just thinking I had been.

Trust me, at the time it all sounded very legit the way she talked and worded things. Hook, line and sinker but then I smelled the fish so I decided to throw it back. :-)