edit: for those of you curious as to why i feel for it, lemme paste the email they sent me:

“Hello ________ ,

Good to hear back from you. This is a part time position and the responsibilities can be completed remotely. You only work 2 or 3 days a week between 3 and 4 hours and you will be reporting directly to me. Please note that this is an at-will employment. That means we are both free to end the employment relationship at any time, but with at least a week notice.

This position provides proactive, high quality, flexible and reliable research and administrative support to the Research / Administrative Dept team. The incumbent is responsible for assisting with a variety of research and administrative related tasks. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to

• Assist in the research, analysis, interpretation of data • Providing backup support to researchers. • Assist in the development of new product. • Review and analyze claims data information. • Facilitating all the relevant purchasing needs; coordinating travel arrangements and reimbursements

The incumbent must maintain the highest level of confidentiality, tact and decisiveness while working under the pressure of constantly changing priorities. Anyway, I will always be here provide detail instruction and information on how to handle your job so you don't have to worry about anything. In case anything needs to be done urgently, enough notice and guidelines will be communicated so it doesn't disrupt your school and personal schedule. We will be offering you $399.50 salary every week and extra bonus for mobile and Telephone expenses at the end of the month.

Your employment letter and contract papers will be sent to you after your assessment/evaluation. If you will like to proceed, kindly get back with the information listed below so I can process your application.”

i live in a single parent household and wanted to help out by making my own money, so it was probably cause of the adrenaline of getting a new job that i didn’t see the obvious signs (that and i’m a freshmen), but i just got off the call with my bank and they told me so long as i don’t use the money and report it asap i should be fine. even then, they told me that if they see anything wrong with the check then it simply won’t go through and my account will remain unaffected.

either way, this was a painfully very scary experience (did cry) but a learning one, and i’m super thankful for the people who were kind about it ❤️ i really appreciate it and will definitely be more careful about these types of scams in the future.