So... For the past three or four weeks I've been diligently looking for a job. I've applied to about seven different job networking sites and, cross your fingers, I think I have a job finally. Call back for second interview, so that's always promising. Anyways, during my hunt I came across quite a few disturbing and insteresting developments. First of all these work from home jobs, do any of those actually work? Second, posting an ad for a job that doesn't exist just so they can get you to input your info. I'm betting they either sell your information to telemarketing companies or use it themself somehow. Third, actually telling someone they have the job, just so they can get your information. Check out this letter and please tell me what you think?
Hello,
Hope you're having a pleasant day today
You contacted me applying for the position which I advertised on Craigslist. Do take time to go through this introductory mail and feel free to pass any questions on.
My profile briefly:
I'm Ray Michael, 58, and a father of 3 wonderful kids, a successful entrepreneur and investor, a member of the Angel Investment Network. I'm also a research journalist and I travel every now and then within and outside the US working on various independent projects, this is why I need someone who can help keep up to date with all of my activities especially when I'm away and amidst my busy schedule.
I have had a previous PA who has been very commendable in her activities and who has been part of my life for the past 6 months, she has since moved on with her personal life and it has affected me in a way. I found her previously on the craigslist website and I sincerely hope I will be able to find someone again who will be as efficient as she has been.
Please note that you are being hired only on a personal level. All correspondences would be made and promptly reported to me personally. The position is part time and home-based meaning you can work most times from your home as long as you have a regular internet access. You are also hired on a trial basis for now until we are able to see how well we fit in, this however does not affect your weekly wage.
Most of your activities will be carried out locally and most official packages will be delivered via posts. You will be actively involved in my personal, business and financial life. In summary, your activities as my assistant amongst other things will include;
* Acting as an alternative telephone correspondence;
* Running personal errands, supervisions and monitoring;
* Organizing and maintaining diaries, memos and making appointments;
* Dealing with incoming email, faxes and post;
* Carrying out background research and presenting findings;
* A personal reminder for Schedules, programs, flights and keeping me up to date with them as they come up;
* Arranging travel and accommodation
* Carrying out specific projects and research;
* Taking on some of the my responsibilities and working more closely with management and other staff related to me;
* Making regular contacts and drop-offs on my behalf.
* Handling and monitoring financial activities.
* Processing and taking charge of weekly payments and purchases.
* You will also be a part of my household and a helping hand to issues as they arise.
* General clerical activities.
Basic wage is $550 a week.
Any extra personal expenses (transport, gas, etc) incurred by you while on an errand or otherwise will also be reimbursed by me at the end of each working week.
This position is very flexible and it is difficult judging the exact number of hours you will be doing, just bear it in mind that there will be busier weeks than others with a steady pay. Working with me is basically about instructions and following them, my only fear is that I may come at you impromptu sometimes, so I need someone who can be able to meet up with my irregular timings. There is also a very sensitive issue on trust, dedication and accountability which I believe will resolve itself as time goes on.
This is only an introductory e-mail, as time goes on we should be able to arrange a proper meeting to get things started officially. I'm currently in England now for a project, however, I do have a number of things you could help me with immediately, prior to my arrival.
Due to the excessive number of responses to my Ad, do provide the following details about yourself for my personal record update and to filter applicants;
Full Names
Full Contact Address
City
State
Zip Code
Phone Number (H)
Phone Number (M)
Occupation (if any)
Sex
Marital status
Age
I hope you can be available for me immediately before I arrive, it certainly can act as a stable foundation to our impending working relationship.
Hope to hear from you again.
Regards
Ray Michael
Can someone please tell me why people would go out of there way to do this? What are they doing with the info that some girls end up giving them?
Scam Scam Scam.
Sadly, everything these days are a scam. Real Work At Home jobs have sites where you can put that information. Any e-mail looking for this info is really somebody out there looking to steal your Identity. Even worse some Nigerian sitting in a back room on a computer.
So in closing only trust sites that are legit and have members who are making money on them. Never give out your information online in any e-mail to anyone regardless of how good it looks and no matter how many excuses they try giving you.
Always be careful
DD
That scam would likely make you the front of another scam. Basically, they probably have stolen credit cards and whatnot ordering products and ship to your address, and your job is to re-ship them. Of course, when police comes to investigate, they come to YOUR door, not the scammer's door, and then police will think you're a part of the scam, because nobody could be stupid enough to fall for this.
Frankly, the Craigslist excuse is pretty lame. Craigslist is available in UK
http://london.craigslist.co.uk/ . As for reminders and whatnot, there are FREE services like ReQall, personal information managers, smartphones, and more. Sounds lame to me.
Besides, who will admit that they are a scam?
That might not be a scam, there are loads of people who look for temp PA's on craigslist.
Hard to say. It reads a lot more legitimate than many though never know for sure.
At least it's better sounding than the one I received. An e-mail from CareerBuilder offered me a wonderful opportunity. I just needed among other things a bank account for money transfers.
My son responded to one of these legitimate sounding job offers. After the initial email, he started asking for bank account information so as to deposit monies for his services. My son asked him outright if this was a scam, and guess what? He never heard from him again.
I also wonder why the question about your marital status. The age and sex is suspect, but could be, in some cases reasonable. I agree why go through the trouble of posting ads like these, all I can see is that it must work or they would stop.
I think this may be over-reaching. If one of my potential clients asked if I was goign to scam them I would simply drop them in the 'too much hassle' area and move on.
The bank details you give for a direct deposit are usually not the same as the bank details you use to pay, so it is often pretty obvious if something is fraud or not.
The original article seems pretty clean cut to me, by the sound of his lifestyle he probably does need a PA, and he is not asking for anything less than most other jobs would ask for!
I responded back to him very politely saying, "Yes I'll accept the position" For my own verification, I asked, If he could send me a link to his job site or some more information about himself. Then I would send my personal info. I believe any supervisior would appreciate this, but he never replied back.
On the other hand, no scam is going to admit that they are a scam.
by gentjoe 14 years ago
where can I check on a website to see if it is a scam
by lovelymama 13 years ago
Do you know anything about internet scams. Would you be interested in doing a hub on internet scamsI was scammed recently by someone posing as a paypal employee. You seem to be all about the technology age so I thought it might be a good hub for you. Let me know if your interested...
by DellaG 14 years ago
You know the stories you've no doubt come accross them on your Blog , But what I would really like to know is ARE THEY TRUE or is it all just another way of conning us out of our hard earned Dosh????
by Anamika S Jain 14 years ago
How to identify Online Scams
by Rajesh S. 15 years ago
It is said that 95-98% of home business are fraud? Can any one share his/her experience with such fraud web sites? I will soon be coming out with my own experience. Is it not possible to wipe out 'fraud' home business so that Genuine Home Business can blossom?
by Liz Elias 7 years ago
So, in today's mail, I got this very interesting communication:As I recall, you have to have signed up for an AdSense account, in order to participate in the HP ad program, correct?So, that means I do have one, but I sure as H-E-double-toothpicks can't access it AT ALL!I don't know where/how to...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |