Claiming to be MitraBiotech

Ebony –

Victim Location 84401

Total money lost $3,310

Type of a scam Employment

This scam has seriously ruined my life. In the span of 6 weeks my credit score has dropped over 100 points, my bills are all being sent to collections, my bank is withholding my student loan money so I am unable to buy textbooks or pay bills. I work a small part time job and the bank takes all the money I earn from that to pay back the debt this scammer cost me. I even have all the evidence from start to finish in a green binder with a 5 page essay included on what happened but I’ll explain in the box my story.

So, I was on Upwork.com looking for feeelance work. I saw an ad placement requesting a virtual personal assistant for 8 weeks over the holidays. Pay would be $300 per week working about 20ish hours. Seemed like a reasonable sweet deal so I submitted my resume and cover letter.

“Pamela” reached back to me expressing her own interest; she gave me a bio of herself and explained that she was the business development manager for MitraBiotech which was an organization that assisted doctors in finding the most appropriate and cost effective treatment plan for cancer patients. Providing me a website and everything. So we agreed to the terms and she told me she would reach out on Monday.

Monday comes and she states that I will be receiving my check in the mail and it will be for the amount of $3,300. $300 is for my pay and the other $3,000 will need to be used to purchase gift cards that she will have me mail out to her clients as Christmas gifts.

The check comes on Thursday and I go to my bank and cash it. The teller asks me if I would like an envelope for the money and I told I would because the money wasn’t mine. She handed me the envelope and I was on my way.

Friday I spent the entire day out and about buying these freaking gift cards. I talked to a total of 7 different store employees including a Walmart supervisor, they all knew what my intentions were wth the gift cards and not one of them stopped to think maybe I was getting scammed.

So I buy all the gift cards and Pamela asks me to send her pictures of the reciepts because she will need them for her charitable deductions for when tax season comes. Made sense to me and I did so.

Needless, to say after about an hour of sending the pictures I realized what I had just done and it was too late. I wrote the FBI, the FTC, the credit agencies, my bank, anyone I could think of. The police came and the officer told me the check stub looked real and I was just paranoid. He declined to file a report. Well, the check bounced and now it’s me versed my bank.

I ended up filing two seperate police reports and have copies of them, I have all the text and emails printed and Stapled, I have emails between Upwork, ITunes, etc. printed and saved, I even still have the original gift cards and check stub.

I tried to contact the media but never heard anything. I wish I could afford an attorney because my bank is seriously doing everything in their power to ruin my life, I swear. They would rather I drop out of college than provide me a loan to pay on. It’s ridiculous and Pamela or whoever she is gets to frolic around with her $3,000 she manipulated me into stealing!

The frustrating part is that no one seems to listen or care. I just get told over and over about I should have known better and it’s not anyone’s fault I got scammed. Which I understand, but I feel that teller and those 7 employees were scammed as well if they could not see the big picture either. Anyways, there’s a brief bio of my story. Stay safe guys, don’t let some scammer ruin your life like mine.