Maroko, Inc. Joseph Maroko Job Offer, Assistant, Customer Service Internet

Recently there was a job listing in a popular local ad site, ksl.com.  The company name was listed as Maroko, Inc.  There were two positions listed, one for Customer Service and one for an Executive Assistant. The listings were pretty standard and there was nothing to suggest that something was hinky. 

I applied for the Executive Assistant position and was contacted by email, supposedly by Joseph Maroko. He claimed that he wanted to have me be his personal assistant. The email said that he needed someone to monitor and keep up with his activities.  The duties were listed as; Make travel arrangements, Run personal errands, Run to the post office, pretty standard personal assistant duties.

It's not uncommon for the first contact from a company to be an email but after that I was expecting a phone call so I wasn't yet suspicious.  It was the second email that started throwing up red flags for me.  It basically said that I was hired and he would like to start a 2 wk trial period but we hadn't even spoken over the phone, let alone met in person.

Red flags and my stupid justification

1- Mainly that we hadn't talked at all but I thought maybe he was out of town/super unsociable and didn't like to meet with people. 

2- He hadn't asked for any new hire paperwork but I thought that would come if/when I actually started working for him. 

3- English was obviously not the first language of the writer of the emails but I have no prejudice toward immigrants but it did make me think of the Nigerian Prince email scams. 

Two days later I received a FedEx envelope with a cashiers check for $2850. An hour or so later I got an email asking me to deposit the check into my account and go buy items to donate to a local orphanage.  This seemed really, really weird.  I did deposit the check into my account but I decided I had to wait for the check to clear before I spent a dime.

I got a couple of texts that the money would be available but 2 days later the check was returned.  I was charged a $10 fee for the check return but I feel lucky to have gotten out of it with a small loss.  

I'm still confused about how they were going to profit from me buying things for this orphanage. They never even told me how to get the stuff to the orphanage so if I had run right out shopping I would have just ended up with a crapload of stuff.  Wierd!!

I just want to get some info out there to try to warn others of this so I'm posting my story everywhere I can.