Example of an Untrustworthy Ad for Au Pairs

by cv harquail on November 19, 2011

Here’s an example of the kind of web comment or bulletin board advertisement that au pairs should be wary of —  Anonamomma very cleverly checked for similar text and found this in a place that seemed untrustworthy.   

maria November 18, 2011 at 8:07 am

LOOKING FOR DOMESTICS HOUSEKEEPER RELIABLE NEEDED IN OUR HOME

Hello

We are a happy and noble family here in London , we have two kids Jasmine and Terry,aged 4yrs and 2yrs old, we looking for an Au pair or Nanny ,Gardener and a Driver from Any Country that can speak English and the interested should be willing to stay with us for a minimum of 2years

About Our Family…..

Ward thomas(father)
Maria Ward(my wife)
Terry Ward(son)
Jasmine Ward(daughter)
Home Address: 47 hopefield avenue, Paddington Brent, London NW6 6LH, UK

We are a very happy and noble couple, My kids are fairly easy going and relaxed, they would enjoy someone with lots of energy ,enthusiasm and sense of humor.

We only seek a Au pair for basic child care and light housework. If you accept to take a position with us, you would be paid 2500Pounds with a weekly pocket money of 200Pounds. Hence we are doing anything that would motivate the intending Nanny/housekeeper to put in his/her best in taking care of our child.you would be paid for overtime service if any occurs.Your feeding,accommodation,medication,payment of tax and insurance shall been take care of by us.

kindly send us your CV or Resume to mariaward19@rocketmail.com,you can possibly add me on your yahoo messenger so that i can i have an interview with you….. Any interested applicant should make sure his or her passport and birth certificate are authenticated ones,because the documents have an important role to play in your coming down to the UK.We shall discuss travel arrangements in due course of which we would be of generous assistance to you.

Reply

Anonamomma November 18, 2011 at 10:41 am

Girls – do not reply to the above post – it may not be genuine – any real family will not advertise here because it is not the proper place to do so – this may be a bad person who is trying to “trap” naive girls – be aware that sex trafficing is particularly bad in England and Ireland

Be careful, be safe!

I have emailed CV about the post.

Reply

Anonamomma November 18, 2011 at 10:44 am

BE CAREFUL – I have just done a text on the above email from “Maria” and the same advertisement is at this link
http://www.njorku.com/browse/job/87730/looking-for-domestics-housekeeper-reliable-nanny-needed-in-our-home

It is on a Nigerian website which screams scam/trafficing to me.

Potential Au Pairs – DO NOT answer this post – there is very real dangers out there.

Good luck

Reply

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{ 4 comments }

AnonHM Europe November 21, 2011 at 10:54 am

These ads are commonly referred to as “Nigeria Connection”. They are known for some years already. It is not for sexual abuse but the applying girls are asked to pay some money (200-500 USD, it varies) for travel arrangements/visa matters upfront. Since the girls believe they will earn much more money once they actually work there, they usually agree. They are to send the money via Western Union. Once they paid, they will never hear from their wonderful family again. Surprise :-(

Dorsi November 21, 2011 at 12:30 pm

I think sometimes the scam is based around the 2500 pounds you will receive when you accept a position with this family. I don’t quite know the logistics of this, but I think they send you a check for more (because of a bank rule, or some other made up excuse) and have you send the overage back. 2 weeks later the check bounces and you are out the money you sent back. This is similar to a common scam for people renting out houses/apartments — when we had a rental house, we used to always get bland emails from someone in the UK who wanted to rent our house right away and was willing to wire use the first/last/security deposit.

Immediately I knew this was a scam (I think a lot of people did) — but I wonder if we can describe what makes that so apparent. I haven’t read a lot of legitimate ads from families, but I would venture to say the minimization of the work — little childcare, light house work and the “generous assistance” part clued me in. What else made people know that this was a scam??

Aupair in Ireland December 2, 2011 at 1:26 pm

It’s definitely the money that should warn you that this is a scam. I got many of them from families in the US. They always live in New York or California, have one or two lovely kids and offer you a great accomodation, 250 dollars weekly salary plus 2,500 USD monthly.

If you are from EU and you want to be an aupair in EU, you don’t need to do it trough an agency, you can find a family and arrange everything yourself (and only about 20% of aupairs are with an agency) and these people know it. They hack into the websites where families find aupairs and get their contact details, then they send them an email and it’s always too good to be true. Most of us know that it’s a scam and we try to warn as many people as possible, but I’ve already met few people who were seriously considering sending them money for visa. It’s all about money, there’s no sex trafficing in this.

It’s really the same as dating scams, where you get a message from a widowed soldier who’s currently in Afghanistan, has a son at home and needs to get back home but unfortunately all his money was stolen and he needs you to send him some so you can finally meet and be together.

You can see loads of scam emails at http://scamwarners.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=42&sid=1d9d421ffe9e3250fa6adcdf45c37088

Enjoy and don’t let anybody fool you ;)

Talya November 25, 2011 at 2:54 pm

A couple of other things that stand out to me as indicators of possible fraud is the reference to a salary of 2500 GBP (I have NEVER heard of an au pair earning so much), and the frequent use of the world “noble.” People who really are upstanding and noble tend to not refer to themselves as such, right?

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