$200k and four year bought me today...

... about two days too close to an English tutoring scam on Craigslist. I had been searching for a way to make a little extra cash, since I won't be making enough money on a 10-week research grant to support my chocolate and beer habits for the next 8 months. After minutes of sifting through posts seeking pregnant models and .Net programmers, I found a post seeking an English tutor for two children. And so I thought, "I can speak/read/write [grammatically correct] English... why not apply?" Several emails back and forth landed me with a couriered check on my doorstep for $3700 (more than twice what the man had offered to pay me for 1 month of tutoring). He had claimed the additional funds were to be used to pay for books he'd purchased for the lesson, and that I was to forward the money to a man in New York.

I was already suspicious when such a large check written by an insurance agency in Florida was mailed from an address in the Bronx with no personal contact assuring my trustworthiness to the ad writer. But when, after I sent an inquisitive email, I shortly received a phone call from someone who claimed to be the father of "Raul and Rita, 5 and 8", something really felt off. A quick google search for a direct quote from the craigslist add yielded many other identical postings in various cities around the country.

I find it ridiculous that I came as close as I did to depositing this check. I take refuge in the thought that I was planning to wait for it to clear prior to sending the additional funds. Unfortunately according to a little more research a la google, the check is likely counterfeit and would not have been discovered for a couple of weeks after the funds were made available to me, leaving me accountable for whatever I'd withdrawn.

College does nothing to prepare us for the real world. It is a blissful, self-indulgent, developmentally key period in one's adolescence, but my four year tenure left me with no marketable job skills and no sense to avoid silly scams such as these. Guess I'd better pray those grad school apps make a good impression, because at this point, the stimulated economy's job market would devour me whole.