NT Detectives...In dire need of someone's skills....edited with story

shoemasta72 said:
I decided I needed a change from the career path I was in. I decided to quit and start the hunt for something that would allow me a bit more happiness. Little did I realize, jobs are harder to find than I had originally thought. Stupid move in hindsight, yes I agree.

Fast forward through looking for jobs for 2 months when I stumbled upon a listing on CL for a “Personal Assistant”. Like most listings on CL, it was very vague and are generally made to garner attention. The ad:

An upbeat personal administrative assistant to manage busy calender prepare for upcoming events, travel, manage expenses, and provide good customer service must be computer literate must be proficient in EXCEL and WORD have good verbal and writing organizational skills and have the ability to analyze information and problem solve.

Willingness to learn basics of Word Press and send out cards. PART-TIME ( PT) leading to FULL-TIME

Telecommuting is ok.
This is a part-time job.
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

I replied to ad asking for more information, in detail, and gave a brief overview of my credentials. The response I get mentions he is an art dealer of some sort and lists details such as make travel arrangements, order office supplies, receive and send packages, pay bills, etc. It pays $300/week and I get to do all these errands from home while staying in communication by phone/email. I took it considering I am between jobs.

I am notified a couple days later that I will be receiving a check for $1980. I am to deduct my “salary” from said check, and then notify him when I have done so. After my bank clears the check last Monday (Oct 8th), he informs me that I will need to send a payment of $1530 to a supplier of his in the Phillipines. I thought it was shady off the bat, but why not? He’s paid me, the check has cleared, so I went ahead with it.

I send the money on Tuesday (Oct 9th). After informing him that the task was finished, he started to make small talk. Asking me what I was doing the rest of the day, what my dogs names were, etc. It was very weird since this person seemed all business, all the time.

The next day, he asks me to send a cashiers check of $20 to a person in NY. After doing so, he needs me to scan the check for his records. I decide to take a picture with my phone and email it instead. After sending several pictures, he is satisfied and I move on.

During our continuous dialog, he tells me he is in France at the moment and will be in Houston on the 15th and wants to schedule a meeting for the 16th. I am very cautious about meeting random people from the interwebz (thanks NT!) so I drop 20 questions on him. He replies with everything I would want to hear. “I want you to meet who you are working for. You’ll get your next assignment. You can pick the place so you are comfortable.” Again, my nervousness I had before was creeping up again, but he extinguished them right away. Still a bit skeptical, I agreed.

Now today, I get a text while I am on the phone with my girlfriend. My dad and I use the same bank. He informs me that a mutual friend (who works at the bank) needs to talk to me urgently. I call 2 minutes after his text. She tells me the check for $1980 “came back” and was marked as fraudulent. My savings and checking accounts will be garnished to reflect this.

At this point, it has sunk in. I’ve been had. I am kind of in the emotional state beyond being mad. So mad that I am silent.

I call the numbers I have for him. What do you know? Turned off or disconnected.

Now I know I’ll be put on a stake for making these errors. I probably should have stopped when I got nervous the first time. I didn’t, and this is what I get. Trust me, I feel like a fool…no need to rub that in.

All the info I have is here:
“William Jones”
(205) 258-1025
(347) 460-2719
greyhunter1975@gmail.com

I know the (205) is Clanton, AL and (347) is NYC.

That’s pretty much it. If anything comes up that I missed, I’ll gladly answer it.

/dear diary :wink:
Click to expand...

Oh man. I won't pile on but that's pretty obvious from the start. They can try it 100 times until they get 1 person and they'll just keep going from there.

The problem that I think you already realize is that there's likely no way you can locate them with what you've got. No legitimate info, phones are probably throwaways, plus they're out of the country otherwise. I have a pretty good feeling they've got their tracks covered and unless you're willing to dedicate way more than what you lost, you're not gonna be able to do anything.

Good luck though.
 
Filed paperwork with a buddy that works for the DA here. He is going to push it through to the front as see what they can do about it. If his phone is still on, he's done for. Also heard talks of tracking his IP from his emails. We'll see where it takes us!
 
shoemasta72 said:
Filed paperwork with a buddy that works for the DA here. He is going to push it through to the front as see what they can do about it. If his phone is still on, he's done for. Also heard talks of tracking his IP from his emails. We'll see where it takes us!
Click to expand...

what email service do you use? I did not read the entire thread but do you still have the emails the person sent you?
 
RIP sleazyy said:
what email service do you use? I did not read the entire thread but do you still have the emails the person sent you?
Click to expand...

I saved every correspondence this person and I have had. Emails, texts, paperwork, etc.

I use comcast. His came from a gmail account.
 
shoemasta72 said:
RIP sleazyy said:
what email service do you use? I did not read the entire thread but do you still have the emails the person sent you?
Click to expand...

I saved every correspondence this person and I have had. Emails, texts, paperwork, etc.

I use comcast. His came from a gmail account.
Click to expand...

it's harder to track people through Gmail emails because of the way their service works.

open a few of his emails to you. set it so the header is showing on them.

do a Command + F (CTRL + F for Windows) for "Received: from" without the quotes. you should see an IP addy inside brackets. cross check each email header and see if it's the same IP addy in each one.

if there's more than one "Received: from", choose the last one. there are various IP tracers online. this isn't 100% perfect because of how Gmail works though. if you can't find good tracer, paste the IP you get here and I'll do a lookup.
 
I guess this thread is more a warning for others.
Click to expand...


People have been getting warned about scams FOREVER.

Craiglist has links about scams at the very top of each page.


As long as people WANT to believe others are giving out free stuff/easy money it's gonna continue.
 
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