I'm being solicited to tutor 'someone's son' who is supposedly moving to the Berkeley area. The father is supposedly in Germany. I'm supposed to take payment for an entire month, and then wire the money to a nanny who's taking care of the kid.
Neat variation on the classic overpayment scheme.
http://www.scambusters.org/overpayment.html
But I want to catch this thief. I haven't lost any money, but since I was counting on the funds until I received more of an indication of this fraud (it's taken a while), I'm kind of in a hard place.
Has anyone ever had any luck counter scamming, or catching the scam artist?
If you're read some of the various scam-baiter sites, then you'll see that the basic formula is some combination of convincing the scammer that you are totally bought in, without seeming overly anxious. Led THEM along, let THEM start to count on the money, and then throw a wrench into the mix. Get them to send you a small sum of money <$101, to cover postage for something. Get a real address to ship them something, verify the address and then alert the local authorities.