The Craigslist Pittsburgh “writing gigs” sub-page just got an Ivy League-quality job offer.
Someone claiming to be an accepted Harvard student wants to pay someone $40,000 a year to attend four years of college for him — plus a $10,000 bonus contingent upon graduation. Books and supplies will be included.
The listing reads:
$40k a year to attend Harvard University as me (Cambridge, MA)
You must have either a 4.0 GPA in high school, or a 3.5 or higher GPA from a university to get hired for this.
Your age does not matter, but you must be a male since I have a male name.
I am looking for someone to attend Harvard University pretending to be me for four years, starting August 2014. I will pay for your tuition, books, housing, transportation, and living expenses and pay $40,000 a year with a $10,000 bonus after graduation. All you have to do is attend all classes, pass all tests, and finish all assigned work, while pretending you are me.
You do not need to worry about being accepted, I have already taken care of that.
If interested please email me a little info about yourself, and we can meet in person to discuss further.
The listing has since been deleted – but not before this response went up:
Harvard Offer I saw your ad but I got to it too late, it was expired or deleted when I replied. This is my desperate attempt to find you again. I guarantee that you will never find somebody as willing or as passionate to do this for you. In fact I would never sell you out even without the non-disclosure agreement (Though i’ll obviously sign it anyway). You seem to be a fucking badass if this is real. I will totally understand why you want to do this and will never ever betray you in any way. I get that it’s hard to trust anything I say but if you have any doubts it can be settled if you decide to meet me. I live in New York but I’m willing to find a way to get to Pittsburgh if you want me to go there. I can also skype online or something. I can guarantee you that I would get all A’s if you chose me and that I would put my heart and soul into whatever you needed from me. I get that a lot of this is sketchy but I promise you I’d give myself in before I gave you in if it came down to that. I don’t even need 40 k every year, paying for tuition and living expenses is enough, though maybe just a little every semester to cover my student loans every month (which is probably like 100 a month or something). I’m not doing this for the money, the opportunity that you’re giving me is enough. You will always come first.