So my sister accepted a new "personal assistant" job earlier this week. It promises 20 hours a month for $1400 (essentially $70/hr). They sent her a check in the mail that she picked up at the post office for $2200 on Friday which she deposited into her checking account. It processed just fine and there in total today. They wanted her to take her $350 for this week and send the rest of it else where in cash...I'm unsure of the details of this. She didn't withdraw the funds as the check hadn't processed and she didn't have enough to cover the balance in her account.
Today she's on a mini-vacation and despite her being "off" they called her and made her run errands to the tune of two moneygrams and a handful of giftcards which she scratched off and sent them the codes on the back. She cut them off from making her run any more errands since the $2200 that they sent her ran out. Apparently another check is in the mail and they want her to buy more stuff as soon as it gets here.
This sounds like money laundering to me, particularly the gift cards. I would expect the scammer to resell the giftcards and get 90% of the value in cash.
Apparently they are planning to meet face to face next week. I told her that the only way she should continue with this job is if they give her a credit card on their account as she shouldn't be using her personal account for their purchases.
Finally I guess the question is, is this a scam? and if it is what should she do now? It's all on hold until monday when she gets the next check which gives us time. It sounds like she could get in trouble if we call the police as it's technically her actions. Should she just quit this "job" and not mention it to anyone? In case it matters we're in Wisconsin.
UPDATE
She got a hold of the bank and they were able to cancel one of the moneygrams for $1000, bringing the cost of this learning experience down to $1200. As much as I hate her loosing this money, I'm just glad it's not more. She's still holding out hope that its legitimate and that their money will come through. She said she'll call the police "if" the check bounces.
Submitted March 18, 2017 at 01:41PM by trcx http://ift.tt/2mULz1b
