The_Dunedan

Dear TFP Financial Gurus,
I'm currently living in Prague as an English teacher. Work is good but pay is slow at the moment, so imagine my happiness and surprise when I recieved an email in response to an advert I placed on Craigslist and Expats.cz. I'd advertized myself as an English teacher, tutor, and proofreader.
The email was from a Dutch gentleman who wants me to tutor his teenage son. He appears to be a man of some means, as he stated that his son's primary tutor would be accompanying him as a Gaurdian.
Here's where things got a little strange. He wants his US-based attourney to send me a Cashier's Check for the tuition. The check, he warns me, will probably exceed our agreed-upon tuition, and he wants me to return any overage to his assistant.
Now, everything I've been able to see checks out. It doesn't seem as if it could be a scam, because he's asked for no detrimental personal information: no bank-account numbers, SSN, nothing; just name, address, and phone-number. I accepted his offer, though I suggested Western Union for the transfer, since Czech banks frequently have issues with foreign banks.

Then things got -really- strange.

I went back to my inbox...and there was another response, to the same advert, requesting essentially the same services. This one was from a Canadien; a Quebecer by the way he typed. Either English is not this guy's first language, or he's just the worst Typist in history. He -also- wanted to pay with a US-issued Cashier's Check. He -also- warned of a possible overage, and requested that I forward any such balance to his travel-insurance agent. This one makes some sense, as Insurance is required to enter the Czech Republic.

This seems just ever-so-slightly too good to be true. However, after having spent the last several days communicating with these two gentlemen, I can find no way that it could be a scam. Neither customer has requested any kind of information which could be used fraudulently; just basic contact info. I'm waiting for replies from them now; if this -is- legitimate, it stands to really save my ass. Can anyone out these see a potential problem with this? It's the time of year when things like this are known to happen, in the English-teaching buisiness; tutor or teacher leaves for one reason or another, and the customer gets stuck desperately searching for a replacement. These two gentlemen both offered to pay in advance; something I would have insisted on to begin with, but which ( again ) makes me wonder just how this could be illegitimate. They, after all, are askin to send -me- money. I could see it being very-small-scale money laundering...but I don't see -why- someone would go to all this trouble to launder less than $1,000.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Shit. Looks like this might be a new Nigerian scam...not to scam -me-, but tp scam the -Bank- at which such a check would be cashed. I'm continuing to investigate, but it looks like that's what this is.