What is the best website to use to become an au pair/ nanny (international?

I want to become an au-pair.I have signed the contract,but now I got a suspicious letter.Can it be a scam?

• The letter is from UK home oofice, but one of the parts is really strange... "CONFIRMATION/PROOF OF SUFFICIENT FUNDS This step must be completed by any one you wish to stand in as your next of Kin. As per UK Immigration policies, an individual must be aware of your travel to the United Kingdom. This can be your Mother or Father or Brother or Sister or Close Relative or friend and is at your discretion. To meet the above requirement your selected next of kin is required to make a deposit of the stipulated financial requirement of £850 GBP via any Western Union/Money Gram agent using the following format : Senders Name: Should be the selected individual you wish to stand in as your next of kin(eg;Friend,Sister,Mother Father,Brother) Receivers Name: Must be you the primary sponsor: (Anastasia Bokataya) Payout Location: Your intended residential address in the UK(eg;Your employers address in the contract letter or any address you have here in UK) Payout Country: United Kingdom As soon as you come down here you can visit any Western Union/Money Gram agent and receive back your deposit,using the details. Note: You must ensure that the senders name is the above as instructed and the receiver is you for security reasons and as the primary sponsor of your immigration into the United Kingdom. Payout Location: Your intended residential address in the United Kingdom. It is not compulsory that you must use the residential address of your Employer which is also your residential address. If you have an alternative residential address here in United Kingdom, you can also use that. However it is advisable if this is your first time to travel to United Kingdom, to use your employers residential address which is also your address. Payout Country: United Kingdom Note: Ensure that the receiver is you so that only you can withdraw the deposit after the verification of deposit has been carried out, as the Home Office would not be liable for loss. This is not a payment but a deposit for verification which is why it is in your name as the receiver and to also fulfill that you have funds to support yourself when you arrive here till you receive your first salary from your Employer. " Is it all right to send money there? Or it is a scam?

• Answer:

  100% scam. There is no nanny job and NO such thing as a UK aupair visa. There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money. The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "government visa official" or "travel agent" and will demand you pay, in cash, via Western Union or moneygram. The scammer will simply pretend to be you and pick up your cash and disappear. Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever. Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram. You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information. Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash. Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer. 6 "Rules to follow" to avoid most fake jobs: 1) Job asks you to use your personal bank account and/or open a new one. 2) Job asks you to print/mail/cash a check or money order. 3) Job asks you to use Western Union or moneygram in any capacity. 4) Job asks you to accept packages and re-ship them on to anyone. 5) Job asks you to pay visas, travel fees via Western Union or moneygram. 6) Job asks you to sign up for a credit reporting or identity verification site. Avoiding all jobs that mention any of the above listed 'red flags' and you will miss nearly all fake jobs. Only scammers ask you to do any of the above. No. Exceptions. Ever. For any reason. If you google "fraud aupair job scam","fake nanny job Western Union scam" or something similar, you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims of this type of scam.