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"Mexican family" scam
A few weeks ago I heard from an inquiring parent needing care immediately for his two sons. He confirmed that my day home was the one he would like for his sons to attend as soon as they returned to Calgary from Mexico. He sent a money order for far more than my deposit. He's now requesting that I deposit it and putting all kinds of pressure on me to issue him a new money order and send it to his address in Mexico; not allowing the time for it to clear in my account and even going so far as suggesting I deposit it in an ATM and withdraw the remainder to issue a new one. Alarm bells went off and I requested the teller at my bank to hold it for as long as it takes to fully clear and letting her know how sketchy I think it is. Has anyone else had this problem?
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100% scam, I'm sorry you are having to deal with this :( Do not under any circumstances send him any money.
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So sorry your dealing with this. A LOT of us have gotten the same email. all across canada
http://www.daycarebear.ca/forum/show...re...-Thoughts
Do NOT send him money back or they will clear out your bank account
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Do not ever book a child in your daycare without meeting with the family no matter what. If you follow that rule you will not put yourself in the position to be scammed.
This money order is no good and hopefully your bank doesn't have any charges to you for it bouncing. Do not send any money!
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I recently had a similar situation- a Canadian family returning home from living in Mexico wanted to enroll their 2 sons,,, but I thought something was fishy when they wanted to wire money to me - I emailed them saying I'd need to meet them 1st- no reply--- thanks for posting about this, it is so important to avoid these scammers!
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Thank you sooo much, lovely caregivers!!! I wasn't going to send him anything back but you've just confirmed all my suspicions. I really hope no one falls for this!
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Indeed, never ever send or accept money from anyone on the Internet, without meeting with them and preferably signing a contract ! Unfortunately, scammers do look through online classified ads (on our site, and on many others), trying to lure unsuspecting people into their scheme.
Note that we are currently trying to identify the IPs that were used to access our website, so we can try to prevent these scammers from contacting our users again. ;)
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My family owns another business in retail and we've had this there as well. They want to buy large quantities promising to have the shipping taken care of, they want to send a money order for the amount ect. It's the same scam across the board.
How much did was the discrepancy between what they paid and what they owed? I've always wondered how much money someone is looking for when they do this.
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What they usually come back is with is something along the lines of there was a mistake and their relocation company accidentally sent their childcare deposit and ______ something important and could you please wire the excess amount back to them immediately and they will pay for the wire.
Being military and relocated frequently it never made sense but I can see how someone might do it in the sense that we care about kids and if the money was for the child's physical to leave the country or copies of child's documents or whatever we think of a child suffering if we don't do it. Even if they pay for the wire they will still get enough money from the scam. The urgency blamed on the child's needs is so it gets done before the bank catches on.
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This is so scary that this is happening. We all need to be very careful and cautious!