Job As Personal Assistant

Hi, I found a job as a personal assistant on craigslist. I emailed the person for more information and got this back:

"Good day,
In response to my Craigslist post,I am in search of dependable individual with a high pedigree to help me handle my Business errands.Do take time to go through this introductory mail and feel free to pass any questions
Henry Wilson is My name and I have been A photographer for over 14years and also has been teaching photography for 8years.I bring a unique teaching style to students which will guarantee creative and fun learning by all student photographers while elevating them to new,exciting photographic heights that they have only dreamed of.I often conduct LIVE slide/talk lectures on Understanding Exposure,the Art of Seeing, Macro Photography and Photographing People throughout the USA,CANADA, Great Britain and Asia.At the moment,I am in a work-shop in Canada.I will be here for a month after which I will fly down to Paris for a Live-slide/talk show lectures with some students.
YOUR DUTIES AS MY PERSONAL ASSISTANT.
While I am out of the states,I need some one who can stand in the gap for me.His/her duties will be:
-To receive letters and mails on my behalf.
-Receive Payments from clients who want to attend the forth coming workshops or Live shows
-Schedule appointments for me.
-Book my flight tickets. Send letters and mails from my clients.
This position is home-based and a flexible part time job,you can be in any location you will be working from your home doing all the activities.All you need do is to check your emails twice daily and keep your phone on most times in case I might need to call you from anywhere I may be.I do have a number of things you could help me with this week if you will be available to start.
Let me know if you have any of the office equipment (If not),I will make arrangements to send them to your address
Printer:
Personal Laptop/Desktop:
Internet Access:
Scanner:
Fax machine:
Laminator:
Paper Cutter:

For proper review(since i am not available now to set up a face-to-face interview) supply out correctly the information below .
FULL NAME :
Full Street Address(Not PO Box) :
Apt No :
City, State, Zip Code:
Age:
Present Occupation:
Cell Phone Number:
Age:
Home Phone Number:
Email:
Note: It will be of added advantage if you can provide 2 references from your past employments.

QUALIFICATION:
-Educational background is not a criteria.
-You must be Organized and able to take instructions well Dependable, Reliable, Trustworthy a must
-Must have excellent English language skills (both spoken and written)
-Have great work ethic and attitude,pay-attention to detail, capable of multi-tasking, and works well under stress at times
Benefits:
- Yearly performance bonus
- Paid vacation/sick/personal days
- Medical benefits
Salary:
$500 weekly($2,000 monthly)
Also,there will be compensation for efficiency and hard work.
Regards

This is the email he used: [email protected]

I am now sure this is a scam as there are other similar posts, but that was after I sent him the information he needed for the "proper review".
Should I be worried about him stealing and using my identity?
What steps should I take so nothing would happen to me?

I am now sure this is a scam as there are other similar posts, but that was after I sent him the information he needed for the "proper review".
Should I be worried about him stealing and using my identity?
What steps should I take so nothing would happen to me?

Your absolutely right, its a scam. Rule #1 is "if it sounds too good to be true, it is". Please post the email addresses ( both To: and Reply to: ) of this person to warn others searching for the addresses / form letters they are using.

as far as your personal information goes, it depends on how sophisticated the person / gang of scammers is weather or not they will try and use it to impersonate you. Most of the time it is beyond their capacity.

for those remaining times : it ultimately depends on the info contained in your CV. Set up an alert for your info here :
http://www.google.com/alerts using the information in your CV that you sent, and for other tips on what to put and not put in a CV try this site : http://www.privacyrights.org/

Thank you. I am slightly relieved. I have created a Google Alert on my name. Would that be enough? As far as the information that the scammer knows are just my name, email, phone number, address, and age. Would this still get me into a problem?

The email address and name he use is: Henry Wilson, [email protected].

If it were me, I would set up more alerts ( and remember to keep them in quotes) for all of the information you gave out. The quotes means it will search for exactly what is in between the quotes. Otherwise it uses default and / or statements of the keywords. in other words 123 Main street searches for any web pages with 123 and/or main and/or street. But "123 Main Street" only searches for web pages with 123 Main Street, in that exact order on them.

ergo: email, phone number, address are the other items I would be sure to include on other alerts ( don't make one with all of the information, use a separate alert for each information). Better safe than sorry in a situation like this. It also may reveal some additional internet sites that have your information that you did not know about. In that case you can write to the webmaster and have your personal information removed from their site ( with few legal exceptions).

The writing tells me that the states the scammer is in are not Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, but more likely Ogun, Osun, Ondo, and Edo. It's unlikely that the West African will have any way to commit identity theft on someone in the USA. Still, setting an alert is not a bad idea.

Thank you for sharing! I'm in a bit of disbelief right now because I received an email almost identical to yours after sending the potential employer my resume (through craigslist). The 2nd email I received asked me to send a picture of myself along with some references. (Which I did!) And today, I received an email (and text msg) which included a legitimate USPS tracking number for a package they're sending me that obtains a check in it. I tracked the package and it's actually in my area and will be delivered today. Now that they have my full name, home address, previous employers info, cell number and 2 personal references, what should I do?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!! I'll paste all 3 emails below.

EMAIL #1

Good day,
In response to my Craigslist posting, I am in search of dependable individual with a high pedigree to help me handle my Business errands. Do take time to go through this introductory mail and feel free to pass any questions on.
Nicholas Scarpinato Scott is my name and I have been a photographer for over 13 years and also have been teaching photography for 7 years. I bring a unique teaching style to students which will guarantee creative and fun learning by all student photographers while elevating them to new, exciting photographic heights that they have only dreamed of. I often conduct LIVE slide/talk lectures on Understanding Exposure, the Art of Seeing, Macro Photography and Photographing People throughout the USA, CANADA, Great Britain and Asia. At the moment, I am in a work-shop in Great Britain. I will be here for a week after which I will fly down to CANADA for Live-slide/talk show lectures with some students.
YOUR DUTIES AS MY PERSONAL ASSISTANT.
While I am out of the states, I need someone who can stand in the gap for me. Your duties will be To receive letters and mails on my behalf. Receive Payments from clients who want to attend the forth coming workshops or live shows. Schedule appointments for me, Book my flight tickets. Send letters and mails from my clients.

This position is home-based and flexible, you can work from any location All you need do is to check your emails twice daily and keep your phone on most times in case I might need to call you . I do have a number of things you could help me with next week if you will be available to start. Let me know if you have any of the office equipment (If not),I will make arrangements to send them to your address
Printer:
Personal Laptop/Desktop:
Scanner:
Fax machine:
Laminator:
Paper Cutter:
For proper review please reconfirm the information below.
FULL NAME:
Full Street Address (Not PO Box)
Apt No : City, State, Zip Code:
Present Occupation:
Cell Phone Number:
Age:
Home Phone Number:
Email:
Note: It will be of added advantage if you can provide 2 references from your past employments.
QUALIFICATION:

Educational background is not a criteria.
You must be Organized and able to take instructions well Dependable, Reliable, Trustworthy a must Excellent communication skills (both spoken and written)Have great work ethic and attitude, pay-attention to detail, capable of multi-tasking, and works well under stress at times.
Salary:$500 weekly ($2,000 monthly) Also, there will be compensation for efficiency and hard work.

Regards
Nicholas Scarpinato Scott
WEBSITE:http://www.nicholasscarpinato.com/

EMAIL #2

Thanks for your interest, I deeply appreciate all your genuine effort in helping me to monitor and keep up to date with all my activities. I have had a previous Personal assistant who has been very commendable in her activities and who has been part of my life for the past six months, she had an accident and she told me that she cant continue. I sincerely hope I will be able to find someone again who will be as efficient as she has been. This position is home-based and flexible, working with me is basically about instructions and following them, my only fear is that I may come at you impromptu sometimes, I need someone who can be able to meet up with my irregular timings. There is also a very sensitive issue on trust and accountability which I believe will resolve itself as time goes on. I want you to know that you will assume duty today and your first week salary will be paid every seven days. So, it will be registered that you start the job with me on August 26 2014. Your first task is to find out the prices of all the office supplies you will need for work Asap today. Find out the best and most efficient office supplies with their prices so that we can compare and contrast and then go for the one that will serve us better. Moreover, I want you to understand that your first week assignment is trial one to confirm your eligibility and how efficient you may be.

You shall be paid but trust matters a lot because you will be handling some of my personal security information which is very delicate to give out until we have a face to face interview. Don't be biased, an interview in this regards is just all about getting to know ourselvesusting and meeting ourselves because that should be the protocol before I let you handle anything but I realize that the administrative jobs I have at hand is kind of disturbing and my trip wouldn't allow me do it from here. Some of my clients are also disturbing me and will also ask from you if you can receive funds on my behalf and help me deposit it directly in my account when I am not around? (How much funds can you handle or be entrusted with?) I want you to understand that you are dealing with me directly as my personal assistant and I will appreciate if you have your duty done very fast for me. You shall receive your 1099 Tax form after your first assignment if the need be. Luckily, I am having my final stay here(This Weekend) Sunday Morning.

Furthermore, I want you to know that If you can manage your time properly, this job may even give you some extra while you do something else on the side. As I have said, I'd want us to get a head start with things as soon as possible. I do have a pile up of work and a number of unattended chores which you can immediately assist me with, i hope we can meet up with the workload eventually. Kindly get back to me with the answers and for us to get started as mentioned on Wednesday, I will appreciate if you can make a scan copy of any of your picture for final online acknowledgment till we see after my arrival
from Canada.

N.B
I want you to add me up on yahoo messenger so i can run a back ground check for you. My ID there is ([email protected]). I will want you to kindly add me Asap as am online now.

Kindly get back to me as soon as possible.

EMAIL #3

I am glad to inform you again that your contact details have been reviewed and
will like to congratulate you as my personal assistant, Your first assignment has
been assigned to you kindly acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail.
Once again congratulations.
FIRST ASSIGNMENT
You will receive a check this Today on my behalf from a client of mine,
as soon as you receive the check locate a nearby store around you to get some of the
equipments and also will want you to donate some items to an orphanage home,
I will get you the list of what to get at the store upon the confirmation that the
check has been delivered to you.

You were sent a check which would cover your payment of $500 for your weekly pay
and also for the duty you are to carry out. Once you receive the check, you should have
it deposited in your bank, and deduct your $500 and use the rest of the money
for the services. Upon receiving the funds, the list of items to be bought will
be forwarded to you and also the Name and address of the Orphanage Home.
I will be back in the state before Middle-September,

You would have to keep a comprehensive record on every activity you carry out.
Here is the tracking number (I've deleted the #) you can go to WWW.USPS.com to track it so you can know
when it will be delivered to you, The check include your first week payment and funds
to carry out the assignment, once you have the check take it to your bank and have it deposit,
it will take 24 hours for the funds to be available in your account but once you have the check
deposit get back to me so i can email you what next to do,

Remember to always email me back for the acknowledgment of every email send to you,

N.B
I want you to add me up on yahoo messenger so i can run a back ground check for you. My ID there is ([email protected]).
I will want you to kindly add me Asap as am online now.

thanks and waiting to read from you Asap.

I count on your swift response.

And today, I received an email (and text msg) which included a legitimate USPS tracking number for a package they're sending me that obtains a check in it. I tracked the package and it's actually in my area and will be delivered today. Now that they have my full name, home address, previous employers info, cell number and 2 personal references, what should I do?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Take the check to your bank and see if they will provide authenticity of it or not. If they won't ( and most will only tell you to deposit it and find out), then you may be able to call the bank the check is drawn on and find out from them. If neither then I'd suggest you take it, along with your emails to your closest Postal Inspector's office. Make and keep copies before you go, as the PI will want the originals. Find your closest PI office here : http://locator.uspis.gov/locator/

If there is anything that says "Deposit this check then keep your share and send me back by wire transfer....", There is no doubt it is a fake check and go straight to the Postal Inspector. Remember, depositing a fake check under US law is a crime, regardless of weather or not you knew it was fake. It will however, hold a lot of weight with the postal inspector's office if you have the documentation to show you are a victim, not a criminal.

As far as the rest of your information is concerned, there isn't much you can do except make alerts for yourself to see if your personal information starts getting abused. Go here : https://www.google.com/alerts to make alerts. In quotes use separate alerts for all of the information your looking for ergo : "Firstname Lastname", "123 address street" , "555-555-5555" ( phone # ) , and "[email protected]" . If there is any other info you are worried about, make a separate alert for it as well.

If your still on good terms with the prior employers, call them and ask them to alert you if anyone calls about you.
and your personal references you should also make aware of what happened, so they don't give out info about themselves or you that may help the scammer.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful advice! I will be contacting the PI office tomorrow. And I did receive the check in the amount of $4378.50 -- which I will definitely not deposit! I'm sure the scammers will be contacting me in the morning to see if I received the check...

Take the package UNOPENED to the postal inspector (someone at the post office will know where that is) along with printouts of enough emails to prove that it is a scam. Open it in the presence of the postal inspector. No sense taking the check to a bank; you know already it is fake.

If the scammers contact you, do not answer.

Thank you so much for your advice! I really appreciate it!