CNA job scam? Please help

[BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN]

Hello, I have recently been looking though craigslist looking for a position as a CNA, recently I found a job posting that sounds great when I first read it, after looking into it, it didnt really make sense but I wanted to get some input as to wether it was legitament or not, im starting to have doubts, and unfortunately since I am new and naive to this whole craigslist thing, I did give out some personal information. If this is a scam, what do I need to since I already gave out this info? contact my bank? This is the conversation I had with this person, PLEASE help me out to clarify if this is legitimate or not!!!! ALSO, they havent contacted me whatsoever............ AND hes asking me to cash the check BEFORE i start working???

______________________

Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:28:52 -0400

Subject: Personal Care Job Opening

From:***************

To:

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for expressing interest in Craigslist job posting for the caregiver position!

After reviewing your qualifications I am pleased to offer you this long term position for 4 months. You will be caring for my grandmother Susan Jones whom is 71. She will be arriving by August 24th for vacation and will be staying at a hotel. I will be requiring your services 5x a week for 7 hours a day. Your pay will be $22/hr. so you will receive $770 a week. Your job responsibilities will include getting her meals, socializing and taking care of her minor needs.

Brief Description About my grandmother:

She is Independent; she can go to the bathroom herself.

The only medical issue she has is diabetic and she has insulin she uses.

Upon accepting this position you will receive a check in the mail from a Certified Public Accountant and it must be deposited. The check will be made out in excess to cover the cost of my grandmother’s expenses and will include your first week pay advance. Therefore you must deduct your advance from the check in the amount of $770. A money transfer for the remaining balance must be sent by Western Union to the travel agent whose information will be provided to you once the check has cleared your account.

If you are interested in this position and agree to the process of receiving a check, reply with your current contact information and the time and days you will be available to care for my grandma. You will be contacted Via phone within 3 business days by the travel agent.

Full Name:

Mailing Address (include apt# if any):

City, State Zip Code:

Cell/Home No:

Best time to reach you:

Current job status:

Time and days you will be available to monitor her:

Sincerely,

Mark Simpson

---------

I replied saying

"

Thank you for replying to me, I understand the pay but i need a bit more clarification as to how the payments will work. I also understand that the patient is diabetic and I have had a lot of experience with diabetic patients. Please confirm this position with me so that I will change some plans that I had for the up coming month. Thank you very much"

i also gave the personal information

-------------

He replied with this

Dear Magali,

I wish to congratulate you on the new job. This caregiver position to take care of my grandmother requires your 100% loyalty and co-operation. You will start on 26th of August. Once My travel agent receive the funds from the excess check that will be sent to you by my Certified Public Accountant , he will then proceed to Book accommodation at where you will be taking care of My grandmother.

Please do confirm the information you have provided me for payment to be mailed out to your address

I'm sure you've been told this, but yeah, you've been/are being scammed. Anyone that "overpays" and then wants you to refund the over payment is totally screwing you over. That money probably goes to their Nigerian bank account....

[ComeTogether, LPN]

Scam scams am. They do it all over Craigslist. You'll cash they check and later it will bounce holding you responsible. If it seems too good to be true....it is!

[Joe N635DC]

And while we are at it. Why is a lady who need this kind of care on vacation being kept in a hotel and cared for by an unknown person?

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

And while we are at it. Why is a lady who need this kind of care on vacation being kept in a hotel and cared for by an unknown person?

If we're playing "while we're at it", how about the advertiser saying his name is Mark Simpson, his grandmother is Susan Jones, and yet he very clearly writes English as a second language--in other words, clearly a foreigner to the US who has chosen 'Brady Bunch' type names for the scam to make it seem more honest.

Obviously by now, given the number of posts describing how these scams work, the OP (who likely is horrified at how gullible she was) knows what NOT to do in the future.

To be honest, I really thought NO one fell for these kind of scams anymore, given the prevalence of them on the internet and the laugh (most of us) get out of them.

Still, very sorry the OP had to learn the hard way.

[KimberlyRN89, BSN, RN]

Yes I just saw that that website, sad that i was ignorant to believe that this was real. Now that I have his email address, should I report that to the bank as well just in case? what can they do with my name, address, phone number, and email?

I think you should close your email account, and you might want to change your phone number too. Like another poster mentioned, you can alert this to the credit bureaus.

[Paws2people]

7 Types of Common Craigslist Scams to Watch Out for

[Paws2people]

Note #1 on the list sounds VERY familiar

[ctmed]

Most well heeled folks with that kind of money in the hypothetical situation listed in the scam have thier own personal private full time companion or two. If they go on vacation, they take the companion with them. Unless the person is a severe jerk, most keep the same companion for years.

No one in thier right mind would pay some unknown person in a far flung state double the prevailing wage. If by the extremely remote chance they do have to get an out of state CNA for a trip, you bet they are going to deal with a local agency.

Scam artist takes advantage of desperate folks who want a well paid "lay out" and do not understand the way the sitting game works.

[duskyjewel]

Go ahead and call me mean, but I seriously cannot believe anyone is still unaware of this type of scam. They have literally been around for about a decade. TEN YEARS. Do people never read a newspaper, an online news site, listen to the news on the radio, or watch the news on TV? There have been dozens of stories about this exact scam in all these outlets.

One of the main lessons for the OP should be to stop limiting her TV watching to crappy reality shows and tune into what is really going on in the world now and then.

[Paws2people]

Go ahead and call me mean, but I seriously cannot believe anyone is still unaware of this type of scam. They have literally been around for about a decade. TEN YEARS. Do people never read a newspaper, an online news site, listen to the news on the radio, or watch the news on TV? There have been dozens of stories about this exact scam in all these outlets.One of the main lessons for the OP should be to stop limiting her TV watching to crappy reality shows and tune into what is really going on in the world now and then.

Some people aren't as computer savy as others and unfamiliar with Craigslist. The OP is an experienced CNA (8yrs in a hospital), but unexperienced with Craigslist. Scams like this happen all the time and always will because there will always be SOME unknowing person/prey to fall for it, AND some scum to put it out there in the first place. Not sure why you are assuming the OP only watches reality TV... One thing's for sure, this person won't fall for anything like that again :)

[PurpleKangaroo1980]

>>In the past 2 weeks, I have received over 12 similar emails all about the same thing. They all sounded the similar: Elderly Woman or elderly man. Age 69, 71, 74, 79, etc. All with either Diabetes or Hypertension. All moving, "close to my town". All with their own Estate Agents or Accountant. All willing to pay up front. All expecting that the CNA will "purchase" equipment needed for the patient.

>>And all of them send the same second email. The second emails included the following: Name of the family member, diagnosis, medical needs/supplies, likes/dislikes, statements about the "money exchange" procedure, and concluded with asking for my Personal Information.

>>Thankfully, I got smart about it. As soon as I realized that ALL of these emails were fabricated, I printed out each and every one. Then I responded to them, by stating the following:

(I would love to go ahead with this plan. However, I will need the Agent or Accountant to contact me via email. I need to make sure that the address is close to me, so that I can make a schedule to see your family member. Also, I like to verify the existence of people before I enter into any type of agreement. You understand, don't you? I just like to be thorough. One can never be too careful in healthcare. WE MUST MEET IN PERSON, only then will I accept)

>>I printed out the first and second emails that I got from these scams. I plan on making copies and sending these to the Better Business Bureau, as well as to the CareerBuilder corporate office. I don't know if these Scam artists can get away with this, but the idea of reporting the scams and involving the BBB, came to me from my local police department.

>>I don't know if it will fix anything. I don't know what it might do. But I do know if yer dumb enough to give your information away to someone without meeting them IN PERSON, then you get whatever you dish out. Meaning, I'm not going to give things away to a stranger. I'm not such a dummy to email my personal information out to whomever is wanting it or asking for it. In the world of healthcare, you need to protect yourself! Randomly giving out your personal information through an email, is like handing you house keys to a robber.

>>The way I operate is if you want to hire me to take care of someone, then we meet IN PERSON. To protect myself I make sure to meet people first, before I agree to anything! That's common sense! You have no idea if the Elderly woman, or the Diabetic man really exists. Why make a commitment without looking at ALL of the TANGIBLE facts?

[i_love_patient_care]

My Aunt I was living with got an email scam like this. They told her that she was coming into millions of dollars if she deposited a check to her bank for 40 grand or something and then sent a fee for several hundred dollars for processing or something screwy. I have a copy of the check laying around somewhere. Anyway, I had worked in a bank before and told her NOOOOO. We made copies to keep in case they ever tried to find her using her address. The emails were getting pretty irate after they realized she wasn't going to do what they wanted.