Francis Parker Francis Parker poses as employee of Mesh Computers offering Administrative Assistant Jobs on Craigs List Nigeria Internet

Firstly I would like to start off letting you know the dark path I took that almost cost me two thousand dollars in an effort to merely better my life just slightly. Due to my upcoming wedding planned for July of 2010 I had started to look for a daytime job to help keep things on track financially with deposits, arrangements, etc... One day I started looking for jobs on Craig's List while sifting through countless ads I had found a posting for an Administrative Assistant. Fell within my qualifications and sounded like a great opportunity offering $19/hr as the pay rate for a part time 25 hour work week. I submitted my resume along with a brief cover letter and the very next day I had received a response stating that he was currently doing interviews through emails based upon the amount of applicants the posting had generated.

So the email interview was basically the questions you would hear in any interview. Why do you want this job? Is this going to be your primary or secondary job? Clerical speed, software experience, and on and on was an array of 15 or so what "seemed" legitimate questions that an online interview would be consisted of. Caught up in the moment of such a dramatically fast response to my resume I was more than inclined to answer these questions promptly and as professionally as I could. Next day rolls around and I receive yet another email back from the so called "Francis Parker of Mesh Computers Ltd. stating that I had met the qualifications for the position and that the Human Resources board had approved my application based on my responses to the questions. Everything seemed great and I was looking forward to meeting in person and starting the training for my new found employment. Through about 3-4 emails I learn that the job title I was being offered was for a Data Entry Clerk, and not the Administrative Assistant which I originally applied for. I thought well who cares, it's still offering the same wage and I wasn't that particularly picky about the job at hand, I just wanted the paychecks to pay for this wedding! Through Francis's explanation of the job details revealed that I would be working straight out of my home and required no commuting period. He further explained that I would be receiving a Dell Duo laptop and a Fax/Scanner/Printer given by the company to carry out my assignments through online data entry.

Every email explicitly noted that I was not to use any personal money and that the company would be paying for the software that I needed to start working. At this point I thought this is working out phenomenally; no driving, the equipment was being provided for me, and their sending me a check to get everything rolling. In a later email he explained the process in which I was to carry out my first assignment in obtaining the required equipment. First off when the money arrives I was told to deduct $100 to cover the Quick Book Pro software I needed to purchase. Next I was to deduct an additional $100 and keep for myself as a motivation to start commencement of my new position. Lastly I was to take any additional money left over and send it through Western Union to the shipping agent to start the process for me to receive the equipment, which the additional left over money was to cover the cost of the laptop and printer. Seemed like a kind of an unorthodox way to go about things considering why not just send me $200 and send the remainder yourself to the shipping agent to save time. Well even then I figured it's just how they do things and told him I was ready to start and would be waiting for the check to arrive in the mail. Two days had passed without an email or check which was fine in my eyes because I figured it would take about a week to start the entire process.

Then the final email showed up apologizing for the slow pace of Human Resources in setting up my position to get the money sent out. The very next day at 9:30 a.m. not even 15 hours after his email I get a knock on my door from UPS with a US Air bill Next Day envelope which held the contents of two Money Gram money orders each for the amount of $980.00. I thought to myself "holy s**t!" why would they need to send so much money when all I was going to be taking from it was $200. Then the naivety in me came out again and thought well... It's probably to cover the cost of the laptop and printer, I mean it's not like the equipment is free or anything. I then set out to follow the steps in which Francis had explained to me in the most recent of emails. Immediately I headed into an Ace Check Cashing branch that was closest to my place and after her sitting on the phone trying to get the "authentication" of the money orders, even trying repeatedly to get a confirmation she hangs up the phone. Puzzled she looks at me and says "I have no idea, but I can't get the authentication to work for me. Maybe were having a problem with our systems, Wal-Mart is across the street you may want to try there." So no big deal, these things happen right? I walk into Wal-Mart, go to the Money Center and the lady gets on the phone to do the same process as before and hangs up and says, "It keeps coming back saying its unable to be cashed." So I leave Wal-Mart frustrated thinking what in the hell is going on! It cannot be that hard to cash a couple of money orders. At home I call Money Gram and speak with their representative and ask if something is possibly wrong with the money orders that I received. I give them the money order numbers and they tell me there are no holds or stops on them. I then ask her, "Well I tried two different places to cash them to no avail and I'm about to think these things are worthless at this point!" So as a last resort she tells me to put my thumb over the thermal logo located on the money order and informs me that it should turn completely white and the logo will reappear a few seconds later. So I give it a shot and the logo stays pink and doesn't change one bit, even if I rub my thumb over it repeatedly. Being off the phone with Money Gram I think this cannot be right, the money order seemed completely real at first glance.

I look online on how to spot inaccuracies in fraudulant money orders and find that the thermal circle is the only "for sure" way of knowing if you have a legitimate money order. So now I am sitting at my desk completely frustrated from the run around holding on to what I thought was $1900 just to realize I just got taken for a ride in the greatest scam I have ever walked blindly into in my entire life. Completely pissed off beyond belief I start looking up all of the addresses, names, and telephone numbers that were on the FedEx envelope. So the package was sent from an address that resided in Lewisville, TX. I plug in the address and it comes up as an apartment complex yet the address looked as if it was a business or house address, no apartment number just the main address of this complex. Next I try the phone number on a reverse lookup site and it's shown as a "Land-line" in Washington D.C. Now how the hell you going to have a land line in DC yet your living half way across the US in Texas! I just could not believe how stupid I was not to see the silver lining in this entire scheme. And it even gets better to the point that the so called "shipping agents" address doesn't even exist, the street given to me isn't on one street sign in the entire city of Buford, GA. Where I went right in this entire situation is that I tried to cash the money orders at a check center instead of depositing them into my checking account.

Now many people are not quite as lucky as me and do get roped in and lose a lot of money on identical and similar scams, but people just don't know what to look for. First off if you ever are to receive funds from someone by check or money order where they ask you to wire money after you deposit into your checking account, flat out, don't do it, its 99.9% likely to be a scam. Your bank won't catch the fake money order or check until about a week and by then you have sent the money out by a wire transfer and it's gone, flat out, too late and you're accountable to the bank for what you have taken and wired away. It will hit you as fast as it took to send off that wire transfer.

So I am writing this story from a self experience perspective to perhaps help a few people out there to keep themselves from falling to this all too common pitfall of internet scams. I fell for it in desperation of wanting a job so bad to pay for a wedding that I ran blind 3/4 the way through until I realized everything had an "all too good to be true" sense of feeling, in most cases it really is.

Here is the traceroute which ties to plenty of scams just like this one.

inetnum: 41.219.199.0 - 41.219.199.255
netname: ORG-SA57-AFRINIC-20050513
descr: Assigned to Lagos dial-pool customers
country: NG
admin-c: NS4-AFRINIC
tech-c: CM9-AFRINIC
status: Assigned PA
mnt-by: STARCOMMS-MNT
mnt-lower: STARCOMMS-MNT
source: AFRINIC # Filtered
parent: 41.219.192.0 - 41.219.255.255

person: NAVNEET SINGH
address: Plot 1261, Bishop Kale Close, off Saka Tinubu
address: Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria
phone: +234-1-804-1234
fax-no: +234-1-811-0301
e-mail: navneets@starcomms.com
nic-hdl: NS4-AFRINIC
source: AFRINIC # Filtered

person: Catalin Miclaus
address: Plot 1261C, Bishop Kale Close, off Saka Tinubu
phone: +234-1-8041234
fax-no: +234-1-8110301
e-mail: catalin@starcomms.com
nic-hdl: CM9-AFRINIC
source: AFRINIC # Filtered

Bmc
Denver, Colorado
U.S.A.