Yeah, new scams keep popping up all the time. Or, in some cases, they reappear after laying low for awhile. Of course the Nigerian Money Scam has been around for quite awhile - since the 80's I think, and the Nigerian government seems incapable or reluctant to shut it down. Variations on the Nigerian scam have, not surprisingly, been showing up a lot lately. EFL teachers have become a common target.

One of the most interesting ones I've seen lately is the job offer from the United Arab Emirates. It's been reported as a scam here before. I decided to follow along with them for awhile, just to see how many garden paths they would lead me down. Con artists operate under the basic principal that it's easy to take advantage of greed, one of humanities greatest weaknesses. This particular job post offers 4,800 USD per month. Once you start communicating with them, it seems to be quite legitimate. Nice emails - seems like a pretty professional organization. But they keep you on the hook. Having lured you and noticed that you've bitten pretty hard, they don't want to lose you, so they use one of the oldest tricks in the confidence man's book. Expediency. It suddenly becomes all about hurrying. If not, they will replace you with another qualified teacher. Finally, they send you the link to the immigration and visa office where you are to quickly procure your visa. You contact them and they immediately send you a response telling you how much money it will cost you. If you don't respond to that email within 24 hours, they send you another warning that they may have no other choice then to hire a different teacher.

Funny thing is, the labor law in the UAE clearly states that the cost of visas will be borne by the employer - never the employee. Teachers who have followed through with the request for payment have, of course, lost their money.

As another poster mentioned here recently, the above scammers all have email addresses that end in .tk. I googled TK and found that it is an organization that allows for the user to have multiple email addresses - all ending in .tk, and that any email sent to any of those addresses will be routed back to one particular email address. These guys do just that. Lots of different emails from important sounding people. For example, the Minister and Vice Minister of the Labour Ministry. Everyone else is a Dr. Somebody, of course.

You can also do an IP address search on the above email addresses and find out that they are all in the United States, though TK itself is a New Zealand company. Doing an IP search is easy - google even has a tool for it now that you can put on your igoogle homepage. It's pretty easy to find the IP number also. Here's a link that will tell you how to do that, and more: http://aruljohn.com/

As we all know, scammers in China and all over the world are preying on EFL teachers. No surprise there; it's big business these days. Moreover, sadly, it works. There are a lot of young folks coming out of colleges or training programs with some pretty giddy ideas about teaching abroad who suddenly find they've become victims. The reality is not quite so rosy as the picture they, perhaps, had had painted for them.

I'd like to hear more details about the scams that people come up with. Not only the ones that lure you in and take your money and you never see or hear from them again, but also those who actually get you into the job and you find out you've been totally had. I see a lot of posts that are fairly general; that is, they don't provide enough detailed information. What led you to believe, for example, that this was going to be a great position. Of course the details about what you've gotten yourself into, but, my real interest lies in the lure. Yeah, I know it's all about the promises and etc., but, still, I'd like to know about the subtleties as well. For example, it seems like the most successful con artists I've come across have been very sincere. They don't just play on your greed, but they seem to be able to tap into other emotions as well.

Well, any information will help. It could end up being part of an article that someone should write. Me, I'm too lazy.