How I Got Caught in a Terrible Personal Assistant Scam

By now we’re all pretty familiar with the standard email scam. Usually it involves someone saying that a Nigerian prince has left them an inheritance and that they just need your banking information (or a small deposit) in order to transfer the funds, which of course never arrive. We don’t expect online scammers to know who we are, where we live, or what tragically practical opportunities we’re looking for.

As a freelance writer and photographer, I often find myself trawling job boards for one-off gigs. Late last year I responded to a Kijiji post seeking a shooter for a wedding photo booth, but I never heard back and quickly moved on. Many months later, someone named Anthony responded to my application offering $500 a week for part-time remote work as a personal assistant. Even though it was not really what I wanted to be doing, I took what seemed to be a random opportunity and ran with it.

To be clear, I did not post my personal information publicly. I applied to a private posting, and this person was either the original ad poster, or they got my info by other sketchy means. I was not expecting a scammer to know I was looking for creative work. Sometimes when a job seems to fall in your lap while you’re desperately seeking employment, it feels like a godsend. I literally thought, “Someone is looking out for me.”

Anthony told me he was a plastics engineer. I assumed he also took photos as a paid hobby. His initial responses were scattered and a little robotic, but again I assumed that was because he was disorganized and needed a personal assistant. He asked me to go to this site to fill out the form for a background check. It did not ask for any information beyond what I’d included in my original application, such as my name and address, so I figured, “What’s the harm?” Anthony then, totally unprompted, said he was going to mail me a check with my first week’s salary and some additional funds for my “first task”—which he said would be buying supplies for needy orphans. Anthony told me he grew up in orphanages and that this was his way of giving back. That's right—he used orphans in a lie. There is a special circle of hell waiting for this person.

The personal assistant scam is a less common strain of email phishing fraud which has already worked on many people before. The most significant example I found was of a North Dakota student named Kristine Dale. She apparently got an email from someone claiming to be a professor offering her $400 a week to run a few errands. When she took the job her first task was to make sure the money cleared and then transfer the money to an account she would then use for her errands. When she deposited the check it seemed to clear, so she transferred the money. When she went to make a purchase the next day, Kristine’s card was declined. It turns out the money had never actually transferred, it just had appeared to do so. Kristine lost almost $4,000 of her own money that I am sure she needed for school.

Before I had fully realized that I was being scammed (in retrospect the orphan thing really should have given it away) Anthony gave me a tracking number for an envelope containing the aforementioned check. The check was stopped at the Toronto FedEx facility. Eager to get paid and start working, I called FedEx to see what the issue was. They said about 200 envelopes from Philadelphia—all with checks in them—had been stopped and were being inspected for fraud. Game over. Not only was the envelope stopped for fraud, but Anthony had told me he was in Nova Scotia at the time—not Philadelphia.

Still, I remained deeply curious about this stranger attempting to take my money. Who was this person claiming to be a Nova Scotian engineer? I began studying our email exchange for clues. After we’d been out of contact for a few days, I received a bizarre string of upbeat rhyming platitudes: “Make a decision to enjoy this Sunday, no matter what comes your way,” Anthony wrote. “Embrace this day with gladness, even if your blue skies turn grey. Enjoy life's little blessings and be thankful for another day.” It sounded like a cross between a Hallmark card and an ad for a male potency drug.

I contacted Anthony and told him about the check situation—without using the word fraud, as I wanted to maintain contact. He tried to distract me by offering up more information about his supposed business, including a company name and mission statement. Like any sensible suspicious person would, I then decided to Google the company. I couldn’t find anything on Anthony or his engineering business, but when I plugged in part of the email that sounded technical and specific, I was bombarded by a full page of articles on personal assistant scams.

Here’s how one of these typically goes down: Someone contacts you through an old job posting, saying something to the tune of, “Hey, the position you applied for has been filled, but I need a personal assistant.” They then mail you a bogus check on “faith” stating that they are “trusting you” and when the money arrives they give the bank just enough information so that the check looks like it clears. Then they ask you to transfer the money to a different account, stating that this is an account for use in running errands. Then the money disappears, after being ‘cleaned’ and the victim of the scam then has to pay back the bank for the bounced check, assuming they had spent the money on the instructed errands as a personal assistant.

I felt raw—not only had I missed out on some needed income, but I had also been duped enough to tell friends and family about my new gig. After about ten minutes of stewing I cooled off and then my mind wandered to ways I may be able to mess with this scammer. The more time they talked to me the less they could scam other people. Plus, if they were going to waste my time I could waste their time—or at least I could have a little fun at their expense.

I emailed the scammer saying the fake check cleared. I gave a detailed account of my first assignment, adding that I had taken photos of orphans playing with the toys I delivered. As proof of my good deed, I attached a photo of Macho Man Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan. When I got a confused response, I apologized saying I must have accidentally clicked on the wrong jpeg.

After a series of increasingly ridiculous wrestling photos, Anthony stopped responding. I was sad that my brief back-and-forth with the scammer had come to an end. I wanted to know more about this person—where they really live, what they’re doing at this moment, if they even like wrestling. Sadly, I may never know.

The thing that makes this so different from other scams, like the Nigerian prince scam, is it exploits a plausible situation. You would know if you were related to a Nigerian prince, but finding a potential employer who knows your work history isn’t so far fetched. The thing that twists my stomach is that it preys on people in desperate situations. Artists and writers chronically looking for an extra side-gig are such easy marks.

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