Manuel Acosta Jr./Previously known as Joseph Wood/Previously known as Mark Scott
Complaint 150139 Details

I was on a job hunt and I decided to search through craigslist for a job because my boyfriend and his
stepfather had gotten a job through craigslist. The job that I clicked on said "Front Desk Receptionist
& Administrative_Part & Full-Time (Baltimore/md)" I sent my Resume through email to a
man by the name of Manuel Acosta Jr. he said he was a Financial Services Professional. He hired me as
his personal assistant. He never asked for my SSC number just the normal demographics such as name,
address, phone number. He said he was opening a building for his business in baltimore maryland and I
was to help him through the set up process. By the way I have all emails and texts messages that was sent
from him. He told me I would get paid $450 a week nothing seemed fraud like at the time. To get to the
point he sent me a check through the mail for $2,990 and said he would let me know the purpose of the
funds. So he wanted me to deposit the check into my account. I didnt have one at the time so I opened one
with Wells Fargo and I had the check deposited 08/16/12 but it wasn't credited until 08/17/12 therefore 2
days were delayed. Now if Im not mistaken if a check has unsufficient funds or is no good (fraud check) it
wont be cleared. The bank cleared the check within 4 days on 08/21/12 so I thought everything was fine. I
let him know the check cleared and he told me to take out $2,600 and only $2,400 was being sent to a man
by th name of Gabriel Mackole in Kiev, Ukraine for artwork that would be for the office we was supposedly
setting up. He wanted me to use Western Union for the transaction and so I did. The transaction came up
to $2,544 because of service fees. After that I told him I completed the transaction and I gave him the
MTCN# so the guy could pick up the money. After that for some reason he asked if I could come up with
$300 to send to the same person he said it was for shipping logistics I told him I only had $190 left because
I ordered work clothes for when we would be in the office. He said it was ok just send $150 and I would get
it back along with the $450 for my second week's pay which equals up to $600. So when I went to take out
the $150 the bank wouldn't let me they said the check for $2,990 was being returned but they didn't have a
reason why so I called 1800-869-3557 and they didn't have a real reason either. They just told me to
contact my Boss and tell him to tell his bank to contact my bank so they figure out the problem. Before I did
that I filed a fraud report through Western Union and they told me tol have the police departent to contact
the so they could move futher into the investigation but before I could do that I got back in contact with
Manuel Acosta Jr. and he said this wasn't a fraud it was just an error somewhere. So I told him to figure
everything out and call my bank and let them know whats going on and he said he would and that was on
08/21/12. I havn't heard from him since. So I filed a police report I gave them all my docuentaion regarding
the scam except for the emails and text messages. Now my whole issue is the bank is saying I'm
responsible for the $2,917 that is negative in my account but I feel as though I should'nt have to pay and
it's the bank fault because they cleared the check. It took them four days to see if the check was good and
whoever sent it had sufficient funds to cover it. The check should not have been cleared in the first place if
its a fraud check or has unsuffiecient funds. Therefore I will not be paying them and I need help finding the
guy that did this to me and he should have to pay.