Hello to all private tutors operating in Canada:

I posted an ad a couple of months ago. It seemed reasonable when I received replies. I thought, "wow, it works!". Well, I suppose the need to believe that people are who they say they are and the fact that they were willing to advance money for the tutoring of their "teenagers" who would be crossing over the Atlantic to learn English in Canada had my hopes up that I would be earning decent money this coming Summer.

It was a hoax! I almost fell for it until the alleged "cashier's cheque" came in the mail. Yes, I stupidly gave out my personal info (mailing address and name) and got this almost reasonably authentic looking cheque in the mail. They had almost convinced me that the cheque came from the business client of the father of the teenager. He owed some money to them and sent the whole amount to me. I was to take the agreed-upon fee and send the rest back to the family accountant in the U.K. even though the family was from Belgium or Germany.My bank profited on the U.S.-Canadian currency conversion. I'm still fighting with them over that because I alerted the teller to the possible fraud but that I was not involved in any criminal way. I didn't feel it was a good idea to send real money to them until the money cleared my bank. Of course, it didn't.

The alleged names of one of the parents are "Janet Johnson" and another one was "Jonathan Blake". I wasn't surprised by the woman's english name. Perhaps she took her husband's last name in marriage. I was surprised by the apparent english name of Blake. When I told them by email that I would wait to see if the cheque cleared as part of a security precaution, I didn't hear from them after that.

So... please don't be taken in as I almost was. I suppose the desire to earn good money from a couple of contracts like this blinded me from the risks involved.

Please do not reply to the above-mentioned names or just say, you already have more than enough work! I just feel awful about this but have to chalk it up to experience. By the way, once the first cheque came back fradulent, the "Jonathan Blake" parent has not been in further contact with me either. He even wanted to scam me for more than a couple of thousands.

I hope I've warned my fellow Canadians in time. Yes, I was a dope in retrospect but I woke up in time to realize that if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is!

I wish you all the best of luck in your tutoring efforts but you may want to keep it more local.