My Recent Online Scam Experience 2020 - My Story

Have you even been scammed online before?  Oh my goodness please be very very careful and do your research before getting involved in sending money to somebody you don't know.  The following post is my account of my recent online scam experience.

As I scrolled through the posts on the Facebook group - BVI Community Board, I saw a post advertising for workers to do evaluations of company's services.  The following is the post I responded to:  

"Part Time Workers Needed.  We are currently looking for people who are change driven and wants to make positive impact in their communities. 

You can make $200 daily with simple basic writing skills and you must reside in Virgin Island. Interested persons should contact us."

I  sent to an email and asked to provide more information.  The following is the information I received.

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On Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:32 AM kelvin peterson <md1peterson@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for your kind inquiry.

We are recruiting people who will be required to carry out evaluation and service surveys on some of our client stores to help rate the quality of services they received while being an actual customer at the store.

The main aim of this service evaluation is to observe and note areas where improvements can be done on services received from the stores, funds for each day evaluation will be sent to you before you carry out evaluation on any store. You are not required to pay any fees for enrollment.

The essence of this, is for service satisfactory for everyone and a better society for all where value service is achieved.

Payment for each evaluation is usually between $150 to $200 depending on each completed evaluation task.

You can decide to opt for daily, weekly or monthly payment, depending on which appeals to you.

The job is flexible and can be taking as a side or full time job as it does not take more than an hour to evaluate a store. Also funds for expenses such as transportation fare's would also be included.

Things to observe:

• How the shop attendant attended to you
• The number of workers that you saw on duty
• How fast you received service and if the service was satisfactory
• Cleanliness of the store or facility
• What could be done to improve the quality of services you received

Kindly reply to enable us start the enrollment process and also feel free to ask further questions.

Best Regards,
Kelvin Peterson
Evaluation Manager
www.ipsos.com

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After 2-3 emails back and forth with Kelvin Peterson I began receiving whatsapp messages from him.  I had to provide information about myself in order to be accepted into the program.  I provided the info and a few days later I was contacted informing me that my registration was successful.

During this time he called me and right away I thought I recognized his voice.   He sounded like a Nigerian.  Red flag #1.

My next task was to open a bank account with First Bank Virgin Islands.  The bank account was necessary in order for funds to be sent to my account to do the evaluation and for my payment for doing the evaluation.

I opened the bank account and provided Kelvin with my bank account number.  He began asking my availability to work and when I would be able to go to the bank and make a withdrawal.  Red flag #2.  I was more interested in knowing more about the evaluations and the companies I would be evaluating.   On Friday 21 February he said he will organise the evaluations details and get back to me. 

The next time I heard from him was Wednesday 26 February 2020. He contacted me from a different telephone number this time.  Red flag #3.  He just said this is Kelvin and that he sent US$1680.00 to my account.   

I suspected that maybe someone was onto him and subsequently had to change his phone number.

I checked my bank account online and he did indeed sent the money to my account.  My task was to make a withdrawal and send US$800.00 each to 2 different people.  He then proceeded to ask me when I can go to the bank and if I can go that same day.  I gave him a fake answer telling him I would go to the bank right away.  You see I received his message around 2.00pm and I like to plan my day in advance.  So I had no intention of going to the bank at the spur of the moment.

I was very uncomfortable to sending money to people via western union to people I don't know.  We are always advised against doing this.  I began doing doing some online research but did not really find much information about his type of scam.  Maybe I was searching for the incorrect thing.  Anyway I finally decided that I was not going to proceed any further with this.

Then he asked me if I was at the bank.  He kept calling and messaging me without any response from me.

On 27 February the bank called me at around mid day asking if I made a deposit to my account.  Apparently the transaction was flagged as fraudulent and cancelled.  

I have heard of scammers sending cheques to people and when these cheques are deposited most times they bounce and the depositor are left liable to pay the bounce cheque fees etc.

In my case I suspect that this scammer may have hacked into someone's account and transferred money from that account to my account.  This is the reason he was hustling me to go and make the withdrawal.  If I had withdrawn the money before the bank had a chance to cancel the transaction, I would have had to repay every penny.

I'm so grateful I followed my instincts and did not follow through with this.  

During the COVID19 pandemic, there is a pyramid scheme scam going around.  Be warned.  Click here to read my blog post about it.