Jobs, job scams, lesson learned

So I thought I would give an update on the job front.

I am waiting to hear from the HR department of Huntsville Intermediate School. I applied for a job there and got an interview to be an assistant PE teacher! I got really excited because they seemed really interested in me and wanted to contact my references. So I waited a while and didn't hear back for a couple weeks and then lovely Hurricane Ike came through and (I think) delayed the process a bit! The schools around here were closed for quite a few days.

And then, finally, Monday of this week I received a call! It was the assistant principal of the school. She was one of the people I interviewed with. The other was the PE teacher for 5th grade. She told me that she was able to contact 2 of my references but she needed a 3rd and she couldn't get a hold of my 3rd so I gave her the person I was a nanny for on my old street (Paula). And she said the next call I would be receiving from them would be from their HR department. And then that same day I got a call from Paula saying that she had gotten a call from them and she gave them information about me and gave me a good reference (I knew she would! she's so sweet) and that it was sounding really positive!

So basically since then I have been waiting to hear from the HR department! Every time the phone rings I get excited. Lol. I really want this job! I just don't really understand why they haven't called me yet but I'm trying to be patient! (I'm not the greatest with patience...Zach is teaching me though ;-))

Another thing I would like to share (and warn everyone about) is job offer frauds! About a month ago I was getting desperate for a job and started looking in the Huntsville Item (the local paper) and I found a job that sounded to good to be true. The ad read something like this :
"Post Office Now Hiring! Avg. Pay $20/hr $57K/yr.Inc.Fed.ben. OT. Placed by AdSource".....etc. So I called the number listed. It all sounded too perfect. They were going to be sending me this packet of information that was going to give me all sorts of studying help for the supposed exam I was going to have to take to abtain a job with the Post Office.

One thing though- I had to give them money to buy this package. Hmm...my debit card number? Well I can get a refund under 3 conditions: "You do not pass the exam", "You are not offered a job on your very first interview", or "After your first week of employment with the post office."
Ok, so I thought it was okay since I would basically be getting my money back any way it worked out. (yeah right) So I was very excited, starting telling my family about it and Zach was excited for me. I was talking to my mom and she was excited until she learned it was not the actual post office who was hiring and she got concerned thinking it might be a scam. So sure enough, she does what I shooouuld have done and looks it up on the Federal Trade Commission Website and finds out that offers like that are not true, you shouldn't have to pay money to receive anything before getting a job, the exam you need to take for a post office job is an aptitude test (which isn't really something you can study for), and it is indeed fraud. Great. So then I was not only feeling dumb, mad, and taken advantage of, but I had lost money and I wasn't even sure I would receive this package of info (that I didn't need anyway) or not. Sooo, mom told me I could probably contact my bank and file a claim. So after I tried that once they said I would need to get the package and send it back first.

So I did. Sent it back to the company without opening it. And I got a tracking number so I would know when it was back in their hands. So it got back there and I tried again to contact my bank and ended up being on hold for like an hour and finally talking to someone and getting some headway and got disconnected! I was so mad and not in the mood for that again. So I gave up and thought I would try again the next day. Weeeell, I didn't end up doing that for a while cause I didn't want to get put on hold and disconnected again. Do you know how frustrating that is? :-p aahh!

So today I get this email from the stupid fraudulent company telling me they received the package back and wanted to know why I sent it and gave me a number to call so I called the number and explained that I wanted my money back. When they lady told me the conditions of getting my money back I basically told her that when I purchased the material I didn't realize that they were a fraudulent company! (She didn't like that very much...) So an argument insued where I ended up chewing this lady out but to no avail. I ended up telling her that I would be taking this up with my bank.

So! After that lovely conversation I called Washing Mutual (my bank) and explained the whole thing. The guy I spoke to knew exactly what I was talking about and told me the bank would refund my money by Oct. 1st (yay!) and that I need to watch the mail cause they are going to send me information I need to fill out and send back to them so they can get money from the fraudulent company. So of course I said okay, and gave them my new address and breathed a sigh of relief.

I was prepared to just let it go and not make the same mistake twice but after getting that email and calling the dumb company and talking to that lady I got pretty fired up and motivated to get my money back :-p Don't mess with me! Lol.

So I have learned a very valuable lesson!