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* Tutoring Scam “Mr. Tanja Wenzel” “Terry Bradford”
I saw this email in a couple of the comments which alerted me to the fact that this was a scam. The comments were about a year old so I thought it would be good to post this scam officially.
The first email I received seemed odd but legitimate.
Hi ,
My name is Terry Bradford . My daughter would be coming for 2 months holiday in the US and i want her to use the period of her holiday to learn fundamentals of mathematics beginning from March 15th. Could you please provide me with your rates, Location of lesson and qualifications and then we can move on from there. I await your quick response as soon as possible, Thanks.
Terry Bradford
+447024086909
I replied to the above email because I am a tutor and it seemed legitimate. The school I go to is surrounded by rich people, rich people can be odd, so the terse nature of the email isn’t out of the ordinary for me. What tipped me off was the name “Mr. Tanja Wenzel”. Tanja Wenzel is a German actress. Furthermore it didn’t match the name given at first, “Terry Bradford” who as it turns out was in English Theater in the 70’s. The second email is below.
Hello ****,
Thank you for your response for a Maths teacher for my daughter. I am really sorry for getting back to you this late i have been working offshore since i sent you the e-mail.My daughter’s name is Deborah and she is 17 years of age, she reads and understand English really good. She developed love for Engineering. thus this lesson would keep her busy and refresh her before she starts her schooling with Oxford University.
Please be informed that, my daughter is a fast learner and you would teach her from the elementary stage, she would be having 8 weeks, 4 times a week which should run for 2 hour’s on every class(please let know the total rates for the above specified times of lesson and what days of the weeks would be suitable for you). I would be making arrangements with my PA to issue and make the payment to you in form of cashiers check or money order, which ever one you prefer. My daughter is due to be in US for her holidays and lesson in less than 3 weeks which is just round the corner and i want her to begin lessons on the 15th of March and so there is limited time. As soon as i have your full name and address including your contact number to which the payment would be issued and sent to, i would immediately pass it to my PA who would immediately issue and send the payment to you. I await your urgent response to these.
Regards,
Mr Tanja Wenzel…
+447024086909
This email appeared verbatim in the comments of a post last year.
If you ever see anything resembling these two emails ignore it.
Here is where you can submit a REPLY to this posting or view COMMENTS left by others. You can also click on the Social Media buttons below to help spread the word about this particular posting.
11 responses to “Tutoring Scam “Mr. Tanja Wenzel” “Terry Bradford””
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Ben,
You certainly did your research, especially to the names you were given in those email responses. Good job.
Thanks for posting the scam!
Someone using the same phone number but several aliases (Lee Mark, Gudjohnson Bendtner, Justine Walson) recently sent out close to 1,000 emails through contact forms on the LearningGuideNetwork.com. They seem to prey on educators (tutors, music teachers, yoga schools, martial arts studios, etc.) They emails they sent out were almost identical to the above email.
I’ve reported them to IC3, but don’t know if that will do anything.
I just got the same email through LearningGuideNetwork.com.
Thanks for the “scam” warning.
BG
The same scammers (or different ones using the same technique) returned about a month after their original effort.
In an effort to reduce criminal activity on the Learning Guide Network we’ve:
1) added “Captcha” technology to our email forms – this requires matching a code on all emails, which makes it more difficult for criminals to use scripts and “bots” to spam our users
2) added a warning of criminal activity to all outgoing emails
3) instituted a program that limits the number of emails that can be sent from any email address or IP address in a 24 hour period
4) removed all Learning Provider email address from the site
While all this reduces fraudulent activity on the site, it is pretty much impossible to stop it entirely on a site whose purpose is to facilitate communications between prospective students and schools. I’m aware of no technology that can stop this.
The scammers are based in Nigeria, so law enforcement is not an option.
If you have any suggestions or feedback, I’d be happy to discuss them.
THANK YOU for these posts!! I’m a private voice teacher and received an email from Lee Mark inquiring about voice lessons for his daughter. I’m listed on a couple of professional association websites and it is not unusual for me to receive such inquiries, so I responded with my credentials and rates, as requested. After doing so, I received a second email almost identical to the one posted above by Bruce G (from Lee Mark again) — this time telling me his wife died 10 mo. ago and he wants his daughter to study music 4 times a week to take her mind off the death of her mother. It was all very odd which is why I googled the name “Lee Mark” and eventually came upon this site. Question now answered! I won’t be responding to any more Lee Mark emails.
Yesterday I received an email regarding a Michael Whie wanting a tutor for his 16 yr old daughter when she came to the states for a month. Grammar was very poor, he claimed to be from UK, having grown up in US. The email didn’t make sense but thought the offer was good. I am a legit tutor and replied to his email w/ multiple questions. I have since gone onto Craigslist scam warnings and found that this is a scam. BEWARE of a “Michael White” with email Apparently there are tons of other names he goes by, check Craigslist for more info. I will cut off contact before any damage.
On: Jan 01/25/10 3:30 PM
They have been doing this a lot again through craigslist.com. I have received about 10 of these from all sorts of names all saying about the same type of thing. Don’t put your email address on Craigslist if you provide these kinds of services.
Similar one.
Name – Valerie Weiss (Also an actress/director)
Example email ids – [email protected]
[email protected]
Ya I also got that e-mail from Valerie Weiss same email ids than V
I got the following:
Good Morning
My name is Valerie Weiss today I was surfing the internet and I found your email contact on the Dept University’s website. I am presently looking for tutor for my son Ethan, we live here in England and he has completed high school last summer back home in Slovakia.He has been ice-hockey camping for the past month and we feel it is a forward decision for us to get him a tutor to in Economics as he wants to be an Economist.
He scored a B in Economics recently in his Cambridge O”Level exam and we are hoping his sporting activities will not deter he academic pursuit.
Let me know your hourly rates and also time during the week and on week ends you will be available to coach him (total number of hours you can use with him a week).Please let us hear from you soon as he would be in Canada in a couple of days/week to stay with my sister in-law for the time being and I will very much appreciate it very much if you can introduce me to someone qualified in the case you are not available.
Thanks
Valerie
[email protected]
With the subsequent follow-up:
Greetings from England!
Thanks for getting back to me with the information I asked for anyway, I would like to know if there will be any other expenses that I am not aware of as I would like to make all arrangement including payment prior to his arrival, in a few days from now.
Ethan has just completed his senior high school here in England,his father and I have resolved to have him complete his university in Canada.He wants to be an Economist and will also be coming along with his own books but I will advise you bring along any material you will be of help.Opportunity Cost in Fundamental Economics would be a good place to start with coaching review in Economics
My husband and I have agreed to start with you for an initial 2week period 3days a week for 5hrs, say 3hrs during the week and 2 hrs over the weekend,from my calculations that would cost us $450. However this could continue depending on the progress you are able to make with him.
I would only advise that you give him a lot of assignments to work on in your absence. We are still working on his transcript here but I would be sure to inform you on the university he decides to attend, he is presently going through a lot of brochures.
Thanks Again
Valerie
NB: My sister in-law lives close to University but a nearby county or the university library could just be a good place for lesson dont you think
I found the following a little fishy – “I would like to know if there will be any other expenses that I am not aware of as I would like to make all arrangement including payment prior to his arrival” Now I know why!
Ditto on the Valerie Weiss emails – note that they’re sent from the [email protected] account and copper.net is only available in North America. She actually called the Administrators of my department, though, to give them the heads up…scammers are getting smarter. Please warn grad students in your department about this if you’ve received this e-mail.