Needing info for a friend of mine

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Not quite a Newb Joined: 30 Oct 2008 Posts: 22

Ok my friend I will just call him Mr. J. R. for now anyways he gets a strange call that I am unshure of the details of then he recieves this email. He is beginning to smell the Stench of a lad and asked me if I thought this sounded legit to me I said "probably not legit but I'll find some more info out for ya."

anyways now I'm here Can you all help me out a little on researching this For me and let me know if we were right about it being a form of 419 scam? If it is, whoever wants it can bait away.

this was the email he was sent He forwarded it to me to check on for him.
-------------------------------

From: [email protected]
To: ***********@*******.***
Subject: Job Opportunity
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 07:59:14 -0500

Hi *******,

It was nice talking to you just now.

We are SEI CMM Level 3, ISO 9001 – 2000 Software Development Company based out of Fairfax, VA. We have our International Development Centers at Ukraine, India and Virginia. For one of our onsite projects at Germantown,MD, we desire to recruit Customer Support Executive. The requirement is as follows:

Role:-

· Act as the prime interface with customers and manage customer issues to reach an amicable and confirmed resolution.
· Interfaces with peers and support groups to manage customer complaints from inception to conclusion.
· Act as the customer’s advocate within the company and acts as primary customer contact for executive level complaint resolution.
· Complete necessary documentation to manage customer complaints and resoond to customer complaints submitted through government agencies.
· Alert management of issues or concerns that require escalation for complete resolution or which may indicate a larger, underlying problem.
· Educate customers on products and service.

Responsibilities:-

Responsible for handling customer inquries into the Office of the President and Executive Management, completely and accurately.
Business writing experience preferred.
Must be knowledgeable of Microsoft Office suite and command excellent keyboarding skills
Capability to learn and operate Hughes Customer Service tools. E.g.CRM, Billing systems.
HOURS: 9-6

Skills:
· CRM, Billing systems.
· Microsoft Office suite and command excellent keyboarding skills

I saw your profile on job portal. At the outset, I believe that you will fit into the role. I need to speak with you for ten minutes to understand whether you will meet our need and whether we can work together.

Please send in your updated resume with a summary of your experience and salary expected.
.

Please reach me on (703) 279 4833

Thanks and Regards,

Asha
www.meticular.com
-------------------------------------------

this was the email unfortunately he did not send me the header In addition please vote in the poll your opinion. Scammer, Spammer, or Legit

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 4:52 am

This is a very well known scam. He will be asked to pay for all sorts of forms to get everything in place for a job that pays very well, gives a car, and a home.

It is a too good to be true opportunity and you know what they say......

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

Hi and welcome to Eater. With just a glance, both domains (the one the email is from and the one linked at the end) appear to be legit. They both have long registration periods, an internet presence and contact details seem to match up, though, I'm not clear on how how the two are connected. Headers for the email would be helpful to see if the email is actually from the domain or not.

Did your friend have an employment profile where the email claims to have gotten his information from? Also, the email references having spoken to him, is this so?

I don't agree with parrot that this looks like a typical employment scam. There are some spelling errors, but If your friend does have a profile and did speak to this person, it could possibly be legit. If not, it's likely some sort of spam. It's still possibly a scam, but I'm not seeing how right off.

Edited to add: Whitepages.com reverse lookup for the phone number in the email yields results of:

Quote:

(703) 279-4833
Type: Land Line
Provider: Verizon
Location: Washington, VA

which seems to check out.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 53

The web site meticular.com has some English language errors but given that the principals look to be from India, that does not mean too much. Further, the phone number in the email is very close to the contact phone number for the U.S. office of Meticular, indicating that the email is coming from the same source as the web site. Responding to that email, I would want to know where your friend's information may have been pulled from. If he has signed up with a job board or networking site such as LinkedIn, the company may have found his information there.

I would agree with Ima at this point that it is looking legitimate unless the scam part comes later. In real life, I know a lot about the business he is discussing, so feel free to send me a personal message on this.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:25 am

You could be right Ima. I would like to caution that if he is requested to send them any money that should sound off the alert bells.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:32 am

I'm puzzled by the email address used being different from the company listed?

They also claim to have spoken to your friend on the phone?

Quote:

It was nice talking to you just now

Did your friend sign up at ionidea.com as this is where it appears to have originated? If you friend is a member of linkedin then it's very likely that he was found there.

http://www.linkedin.com/companies/ionidea?trk=cpp_co_name

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

I've re-read your OP and this has originated with an unsolicited phone call, so I see that your friend did talk to the person.

Is the job offered at Meticular? He could call the company directly with their contact information here: http://www.meticular.com/contactus.html

Obviously, he should be cautious with giving out any personal information.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 30 Oct 2008 Posts: 22

no My friend says thatthey dd call him and most liekly got his Phone number from his personal website. Revealing the URL woudl compromise his identity so I will not reveal it via the main forum. However he does admi that site mentions him as a microsoft office specialist and as a professional call center rep. as well as has his resume info and Phone numbers. they could have obtained resumes and such from his personal website.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

I'm leaning toward legit.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:42 am

Do a search for your friend on linkedin as I'm leaning strongly toward this being the connection.

I too am going with legit.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:14 am

I find it highly unlikely that they would go resume hunting off websites for customer service reps for a call centre, even low level supervisory positions.

I am speaking from personal experience here. I was a manager for a lcall center for a large ISP and printer company (we had two clients). There are a ton of Microsoft specialist out there these days including EVERYONE I worked with. So I find it hard to believe they would go recruiting in this method. For that type of position.

The only way I can see it happening is if he was listed on a head hunter site.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:24 am

Well l am leaning towards legit as well. On the other hand you have to be pretty careful. Do careful checks each step of the way. Be suspicious.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:31 am

Let's start with the obvious:

Myuutsu Ichigorei wrote:

I saw your profile on job portal.

Did your friend create such a profile? If not, then it can only be a scam. If he has, then I'd lean towards legit.

If they, at any future point ask your friend for money, then know that the chances are it is a scam.

I hope this has been concise enough.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:41 am

so you are saying he received a phone call on his private phone then an email to his private email address ??????

if its a lad he knows too much about your mate

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 4:52 pm

I'd go with legit: both domains seem to be anyway .. created 1999 and 2003

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:47 pm

I dunno. I've got a nagging feeling I've seen something like this before and it turned out to be a cheque scam.

There's also one or two things that just don't sit right with me. If you Google selected lines of the letter, you can find it all over the web but in the version here, the word "respond" is spelt wrongly, unlike in the web adverts:

Complete necessary documentation to manage customer complaints and resoond to customer complaints.

And why leave the company name out? Why just refer to it as a "company"? Wouldn't the logical thing be to mention the name (Hughes or ionidea in this case). OK, I can accept the explanation for why it looks written by a lad, but there's still certain sentences that just don't sit right.
And wouldn't "Asha" sign off with who she is? Ie: Asha - Human Resources Manager (or whatever).

Also, the sender has an ionidea email address yet I can find exactly the same job advertised word for word by Hughes.

Personally, I'd tell your mate to phone the company at their office and enquire if the job is for real. Make sure he gets the number from a reputable source and not the one supplied by the email sender.

In the meantime, I don't see any problem with him pursuing this. But if they ask him for cash or tell him he's dealing with checks, tell him to run a mile.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 7:25 pm

FWIW, I did a google search on some of the text and found it on two different places:

job duties look to be lifted from a job i found posted for 'augmentation inc' found here
<A HREF="http://www.careerbuilder.com/JobSeeker/Jobs/JobDetails.aspx?job_did=J8B42H6L3V4LZ5Z3XSX">click</A>

the CMM and ISO statement matched something found here:
<A HREF="http://www.simplyhired.com/job-id/phhg7nbplz/senior-oracle-jobs/">click</A>

Could it be a lad local to Germantown MD area counting on a phonecall back rather than contact via a legit website? It looks a little suspicious to me, so proceed with caution until you're sure.

Edit: looks like Slightly beat me to the google part, but well you get the picture

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 7:41 pm

Give me the addy Ill drive out there to verify Smile

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 7:51 pm

ASEM sent so we will shortly see if this is legit or not.

I just sent the standard "I received your e-mail, how can we complete this business?"

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