How much should I charge for a simple computer job?

Is this a legitimate job offer or a scam?

• I have been looking for a personal assistant job for awhile now. I have worked as a personal assistant before and have the skills required for the job. I got a response, and it sounds like a reasonable offer, considering that he will pay me for the cost of the materials BEFORE I do any of the work, what do you think? Hello, How are you?i need to know where you are located? I would love to meet up with you to talk about this job but I am currently away on business. I am in London Uk so there will be no interview. I will prepay you in advance to do my shopping. I will also have my mails and packages forwarded to your address. If you will be unable to stay at your house to get my mails, I can have it shipped to a post office near you and then you can pick it up at your convenience. When you get my mails/packages; you are required to mail them to where I want them mailed to. You don't have to put money out of your pocket, all you have to do is have packages shipped to your house and do my shopping. You are allowed to open the packages to reveal its content. The content of the packages are computer and electronics, clothing's business and personal letters. All expenses and taxes will be covered by me. You will work between 15 and 20hrs a month. How much will you charge per week? I will pay $400 . That is not a bad offer is it? I need your service because I am constantly out of town. I work in real estate and I own an Art Gallery in London UK . I will return to USA in AUGUST 30th so this process will keep on going till then. If you don't mind, I will meet up with you when I return and then we can talk about the possibility of making this long term. Well, let me know if you are able to handle the position. Hope to hear I will email you the list and pictures of what to shop for when I am ready. No heavy packages is involved! You can do the shopping at any nearest stores. You will be shopping for Electronics and clothing's.. I will provide you my personal UPS account number for Shipping. All you have to do is provide my account number to UPS and shipping charges will be applied into the account. I will provide clear set of instructions for each task I need done as well the funds to cover them. I am going to mail you a CASHIER'S CHECKS for you to be able to do my shopping,please give me the information to be able to send this payment to you,How should your name appear on the CASHIER'S CHECKS ? Maybe you can provide me with the following details below Full Name: Full Address: (NO P.O.BOX) City: State: Zip Code: Country: Home & Cell Phone Number: Sex & Age: Direct Email : if any need arises please don't hesitate to call my Cell Phone # : ( +44-7045779080 ) Regards. Thank you! Christopher Conley

• Answer:

  100% scam. There is no job. There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money and maybe your freedom. Any phone number that starts with +44-70 or anything similar is not based in the United Kingdom. It is from a UK based cell phone redirect service that can be answered by anyone anywhere in the world. It is a favorite service of scammers who want to pretend to be in the United Kingdom but are really half way around the world from there. The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "assistant" and will demand you accept packages purchased with stolen credit cards, hi-jacked paypal accounts and spoofed bank transfers, at YOUR home address. Then you are suppose to use a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number to send the electronics, clothing and jewelry overseas. When the websites, credit card/paypal/bank account owners and UPS/FedEx discover the fraud, you get the real life job of paying back ALL of them. Then the local law enforcement comes knocking asking why are you fencing stolen merchandise for someone you never met, don't know their real life name and have no idea in what country they really live. Another email will be from the scammer and will demand you cash a large fake check sent on a stolen UPS/FedEx billing account number and send most of the money via Western Union or moneygram back to the scammer posing as the "supply company" while you "keep" a portion of the cash. When your bank realizes the check is fake and it bounces, you get the real life job of paying back the bank for the bounced check fees and all the bank's money you sent to an overseas criminal. 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 being the perfect buyer, 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. 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 "fake re-shipping job", "fraud money mule scam", or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near victims of this type of scam.