Recent Grad Duped By Job Scam On Craigslist
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A recent graduate of West Virginia University, Megan Kletzli, of Moon Township, logged onto Craigslist to see if there were any job openings in Morgantown.
What she found nearly cost her a lot of money.
Two similar job ads caught her attention.
"They needed a personal assistant to do documentation for them, to do errands for them," she told KDKA Money Editor Jon Delano. "Stuff like that which I thought I would be able to do."
Kletzli says it sounded legitimate, so she sent a cover letter and resume. Her application was accepted.
That's when things took a turn to the unusual. One boss sent her money orders totaling $1,850. Another boss sent a check for $2,450.
"I was supposed to cash the whole thing but put my salary into my bank account," Kletzli recounts. "And then take the rest of the money, take the transfer fees out too, and then send it out to Western Union to certain places they wanted me to send it too."
Unbeknownst to Megan, both the check and money order were counterfeit, so when her bank cashed them, she was on the hook for over $4,000.
Luckily, when she wired money through Western Union, the company suspected fraud and stopped payment to the recipient.
"He called me 26 times in six hours to find out why the money wasn't going through," says Kletzli.
That's when she suspected a scam and turned it over to the Moon police.
"I was very, very lucky that they caught it for me," she says.
Whether it's something on Craigslist or an unsolicited email, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Here's another hint of fraud: if somebody sends you a lot of money and wants you to send most of it back, call the cops.
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