Adventures Avoiding Scams and Fraud

This past two weeks or so has been puncuated by scam artists coming from many different directions, including job scams on craigslist and stupid men that work at car repair shops. As many of you may or may not know I (this is marie by the way) have been looking for a better job with better hours and such which is proving very difficult. being a "teaching social science major" is about as worthless as majoring in art history as far as having work experience and being able to get a job before i graduate. but i love it and am really looking forward to being a teacher after i graduate in april. but back to the story...

i found a listing on craigslist for a tutoring position and emailed the poster about it. he told me that he needed a tutor for his daughter susan-- mostly because they were about to move to the US from the UK and wanted her to get accustomed to the school system her and know what she should expect from the schools. he told me he was also looking into two other canidates and needed my resume and a details about my work history-- mostly just what i had experience tutoring in and for how long. after a few emails, he told me that i had received the position (yay!) and we set up when, and where to meet, and what textbooks to use, and what my compensation would be ($690). he even called me and told me that he'd send me a picture of his daughter soon so i could recognize her. then brad and i left for our southern utah advanture and returned a week later to find a letter from the man... well, sort of. it wasn't a letter, but a check for $2,200. we were pretty confused and figured maybe he made a mistake in converting euros to dollars or something, or maybe it was to compensate for the textbooks she would need. we didn't know but figured maybe he wold send an email explaining why it was so much more.

but why was he paying me in advance??? this is where we got suspicious. we had an email from him telling us that the extra was actually going to be for his daugheter's driver and wanted me to give it to her because it would be esier and cheaper to only write out one check. then he sent another email telling us that the driver bailed on him and took a different job and he needed me to wire the extra money to his personal assistant so he could make flight arrangements for his daughter and that i needed to cash the check and wire the money back to him ASAP. this was wierd, but i went to the bank anyway.

when i handed hte check to the teller, she informed me of large checks like that being a fraud and told me that lately, scam artists will send a check for a larger amount than agreed upon for a service and ask you to wire the extra back to them. about 11 days later, the bank will find out that the check is a fraud and will require the perosn who cashed the check to pay them back for the whole check amount. (this was basicly the EXACT thing this guy was asking us to do!)

so, i called brad and he came to the bank with me and the teller got the phone number of the bank that issued the check. she told them the routing number, account number, and check number of the check she had and foudn out that it was a real account from that bank, but that that check had already been issued to another person for a different amount. it was a FRAUD! and now we knew it and had caught the scammer red handed. but because brad and i didn't want to be nice about it to the guy, we sent him an email say that we couldn't cash the check in time so we were just going to void it and that he could send the money to his PA himself and that he could write me a new check after i had rendered my tutoring services to his daughter. i got a very angry email back from him saying that i didn't have to open my mouth to tell him that i didn't trust his personality and that he wanted the check back immediatly. he also called my cell phone about 4 times while i was a work and left angry voicemails. never said a thing about not letting me have the job anymore or about his daughter-- he just wanted his money, and he wanted it ASAP.

i still wasn't satisfied. brad and i called the FBI and filed reports and complaints with the federal trade commission and internet crime center. i also called local news agencies and gave them a good story. then i sent my last email to the con-man, informing him that i had called his bank (located in arkansas... weird for a man from the UK) and knew he was a fraud and that the FTC, FBI, and intermational internet crime board had received all the contact information he had, including phone numbers, addresses, emails, the bad check, and voicemails. the bank that he useing bad checks from also had his information and was closing his account. needless to say, io haven't heard back from the scumbag.

and on a less exciting note, auto shop men can be real jerks. i took our car in to the shop for our annual safety and emissions testing. it passed the emisions test, but not the safety inspection. why? "bad tires." waht was so bad about the tires, i asked the man... "they're just bad. they're a safety hazard." um, ok... i decided i needed a bit mroe specifics, i'm not an idiot and i do know about cars-- i took and auto shop class in high schools and can do most basic repairs myself, including changing a tire, changing wiper blades, changing oil, checking and refilling fluids. and i know a few other things because i'm a science geek and have watched people work on the car and have an annoying habits of askiong lots of questions. i'm not an expert, but i do know enough to need a better answer than "you're tires are just bad."

me: so what's bad about the tires? are the treds worn down too much? are the rims bent or dented? are they not balenced? do they have a slow leak?

jerk car man: they're jsut bad and worn out on the inside.

me: the inside? how do you check the inside of a tire? what do you mean by that? like the center area of the treads?

jerk car man: well, if you know what you're doing, you just have to touch it on the inside. it's not on the outside. you have to kow what you're looking for.

me: ok. well, can you show me where? i like to know these thigns so i can notice when the car needs repairs and fix it myself.

jerk car man: we don't let customer into the shop area.

me: but my car's in the parking lot, i just saw the technicion bring it out. can he show me?

jerk car man: well, we're really busy, but i'll see if he can. but you're tires are just bad and you need two new front tires. that's all you really need to know.

the man was very condescending and irritated me. the techniticion showed me that the treads on the rear passenger tire were worn down too much and that the outside of the front passenger tire was bald on the right outside part. i asked about the "bad inside of the tire" and he said he didn't know what the guy inside was talking about. the guy inside was also going to change almost $300 for 2 new tires, and the technition told me where i could find some good junk yard tires for about $20 and that i could prolly change them myself. thanks.
well, brad and i found a place to get 4 brand new tires put on and balenced for us for only $250. when brad returned to the original place with the brand new tires, they tried to tell him we had leaking antifreeze, but the technition discovered it wa just because it was too full from when we had filled up our fluids earlier when getting an oil change. i'm NEVER going back to "CERTIFIED AUTO-CARE" agian, and you shouldn't either. I recommend Big O or "All Tune & Lube"-- they workers there will take you to the shop when looking at your car and tutor you on how cars work and what's wrong with yours is there is something wrong.

all in all, brad and i came out of it pretty well. we caught the tutor scammer before we learned an expensive lesson, and learned that if i want to get anything intelligent out of some auto shop guys, i have to bring a man along, regardless of his knowledge about cars.