Blacklisting tutors Story of Torezhan

Blacklisting tutors Story of Torezhan As a part of their work tutors commonly have to deal with the problem of fraudulent client requests. According to our experience the most common type of fraud is the “Nigerian Fraud” technique. This article discusses this type of spam and tells the story of Torezhan our encounter with “Nigerian Fraud”. The Nigerian Fraud technique involves the student’s farther who is conveniently a rich business person living in Nigeria (or Australia, Canada, UK, etc.). His son is going to visit your town in a few weeks. The son is new to the U.S. so he needs help with English. The rich business person offers you a very generous hourly rate ($50-$150) and you’re looking forward to this opportunity. The Nigerian business person sends a Western Union wire transfer for $3,000; he emails you a copy. Later he realises he put $1,500 to much on the write transfer and wants the remainder back. If you paid now you loose the $1,500 because the wire transfer copy is a fake. This is the typical form of Nigerian Fraud and it occurs in all possible variations. So watch out! To help our tutors we started to create a blacklist of shady clients. So here is our first blacklisted client: Name of Guardian: Mrs. Gaukhar Name of Student: Name: Torezhan Upushev Location: Kazakhstan, Central Asia Mrs. Gaukhar’s Email: gaukhar.kn@gmail.com On June 12, 2009, Tutorz.com has received a phone call from a woman Mrs. Gaukhar. According to her story she is an employee of a rich Kazakhstan business man whose son Torezhan is visiting New York City. Mrs. Gaukhar wanted immediately been connected with suitable tutors and who have excellent credentials. She also said the per hour is $100 hour and to be paid in cash at the end of the session. The tutoring should be starting immediately on Monday, June 15. A request like this raises several red flags. First, the client named an hourly without any negotiation and the rate was quite generous ($100). Next, the client lives aboard (Kazakhstan), so its out of the U.S. jurisdiction. And lastly, the client wanted tutoring for the next business day. Normally, these red flags would suffice to categorize this tutoring request as a fraud. But Mrs. Gaukhar sounded honest on the phone and gave phone number and hotel. Therefore, we took the risk and connected Mrs. Gaukhar with some of our Tutorz.com working NYC. Jeff Antkowiak of FastForwardThinking called the tutee, his name is Torezhan Upushev. Jeff reported on story (thank you Jeff for your report): We did indeed meet once on Monday for 2 hours, but the situation was a bit confusing. Torezhan said that he was staying in a Manhattan hotel for the next month, and this was where we met on Monday (in the lobby). He scheduled a second meeting for Wednesday at 9am, but did not attend, and it appears that he checked out of the hotel the prior day. His full name is Torezhan Upushev, and I believe that the “Mrs. Gaukhar” was simply a female friend of his. I’m not sure why he wanted this initial meeting or what he was after, but given that both he and “Mrs. Gaukhar” will not return any emails, and that the number they gave is now disconnected. The funny thing about this Torezhan situation is that he actually paid cash after the first session, then made an appointment for the next meeting 2 days later. The next day though, he checked out of his hotel and completely disappeared, and neither he nor the Gaukhar person will return emails or calls. I was very suspicious after the request for a CV in the initial email, but thankfully I did not give him/them any personal information. It’s hard to tell what their motives are when someone is not sincere, but at least no harm was done this time. What can we tutors learn from this story? Look out for the red flag and don’t give out your personal information unless some trust has been established with your client.