Job email scam

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Oct 2010 Posts: 2

Hi everyone,

Hope someone will be able to give me some advice. I recieved an email giving details of a job opportunity, which matched the type of job i currently have. Copy of the email is below

Multinational corporation, located in the United States, is currently hiring new managers and representatives for work at home positions, in the UK. We offer flexible schedules full-time and part-time available. These positions focus on providing administrative assistance in online auction sales.
Live Auction Inc. offers best auction solutions, focusing on market research and development as well as database management.
The principal duties of the job as a Representative will involve but are not limited to: compiling and maintaining records of business transactions; preparing and sending out invoices and checks; performing basic bookkeeping and routine tasks such as operating the administrative and partially financial fields of the Live Auction activities, preparing payroll, and other clerical duties.
We see our candidate as a customer focused decision maker, who demonstrates a high level of a personal accountability, thinks about the team first over personal agendas and have excellent communication skills The candidate must forward a copy of his/her CV with contact details and if you meet our requirements, you will receive a response within 3 business days.
If that offer sounds fascinating, please reply to this email [email protected]

I replied with a copy of my CV which contained perosnal information such as address, date of birth and phone numbers etc.

The next day i recieved the following email from a different address - see below

Thank you for taking our vacancy into consideration,
and after reading your CV in every particular we came to the point that
you will be the perfect assistant and may be the Head of our London's
office in the nearest future.
As you can see from the advertisement our head office is located
abroad(USA). The competition in auction markets is rather intense these
days and to compete within the international auction arena we must provide
customized and services similar to those provided by the local companies.
This includes customer support and transaction support within UK
Since we haven't set up an office in the UK yet you'll be processing
transactions from local UK customers. You are welcome to open a
separate bank account specially for these purposes (business or
corporate account will be an advantage). Our respective sellers
conduct numerous sales at different auctions (items from different
categories,arts, furniture,coins, precious stones and jewelry,metals(gold, silver)
and much more). It's more convenient for them to receive funds from
one person rather then dealing with numerous transactions from
different buyers. That's why we hire worker's like you to simplify
the sale process. Also most of our distributors are from the developing
countries and handling a bank account is pretty expensive there. But
they have a lot of precious things which cost little money in their
countries but which ones are pretty expensive in our countries. So,
using such instant cash sending services as Western Union, Money Gram
and others is much more cheaper for them.
Well, I may tell you many things, but here is a link to one of our
sites- http://www.liveauctioneers.com/, so you may see what we are
dealing with. Here is our business address-
Name: Live Auction (Auction Live-the name which was before the
re-constructing)
Address:4114 Seven Hills Dr
Florissant, MO 63033
Open date: January 1998
Type of Business: Auction Dealers, Supplies, Etc.

Well, as for salary-the salary varies from 1000,00 GBP/month plus commission (flexible employment or part-time) to 2000,00 GBP (full time).
Also you will have the additional salary-you will receive the commission from every
task, it will be 5 (from Monday to Friday) and 10 on Saturday.

So, if you wish to join us let me know, I will send you the agreement.

Best Regards,
Barbara Linden
Live Auction Team

At this point the alarm bells starting to ring with the mentions of bank accounts being required etc. I have checked the website given which gives no mention to the job offered and gives a different address also.

I have not replied to this email but I'm worried the details in my CV are now at risk.
Has anyone else experianced this, and can give some advice.

Thanks

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:04 am

Hi Toffee Blue.

The scammer was looking to employ you as a cheque mule. Basically, he would have tried to use you as a middleman to send out forged cheques to his victims.
There's no major danger with giving him your CV as they normally only ask for those to reinforce the scam and to make it look more official. And let's face it, if anyone has your full name and you've registered online anywhere, getting the rest of your details would normally be a formality. It's the things like your passport, credit card and bank details that are worth money to the scammer - not your regular personal details.

There is the very slight chance that the scammer may try to use your details in another scam, but it is very slight. He'd have to target a company specifically looking for employees like yourself and then adapt his scam to it. That's normally well above the capabilities and the motivations of your average lad.

That said, you do now need to be on your guard. As the scammer has had a reply to his approach and you've shown yourself to be amenable to his early overtures, there's the chance that he may try to target you with something else. Pop over to our sister site - www.scamwarners.com. It has lots of information regarding the different types of scam currently used by the lads and you can feel free to ask any questions that may be worrying you.

But as I said originally - no need to panic. Just keep an eye open from now on. Wink

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 12 Oct 2010 Posts: 2

Thanks for your advice.

Can't believe i was stupid enough to reply in the first place! I'll deffo be keeping an eye out for any more.

Feel a lot more reassured now Smile

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:14 am

Nothing stupid about it.

If you're not aware of scams and how they work, how can you be expected to defend yourself from them? And at the very least, you were smart enough to realise that something was up before you got in too deep. Millions of people don't. So you can stop kicking yourself.

Education is the key. It's our best defence. Read up and then tell everyone you know what to look for - family, friends, anyone who will listen. If everyone did that, it would put the scammers out of business.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2009 Posts: 1440

Quote:

So,
using such instant cash sending services as Western Union, Money Gram
and others is much more cheaper for them.

When you see "Western Union" and bad English in one sentence, it's a scam. Laughing

Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 5:48 pm

I recently received an e-mail (the apparent recipient address was not mine) from a sender in China, with a "reply to" gmail account, simply saying that a job is in place for me and asking for an e-mail response, with no other information added.
I figured that first off, I would send a sort of "Yes I am interested, please tell me more about this" reply, but what sort of fraud do you think is involved here and how do you suggest that I bait this lad?

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 10 Nov 2010 Posts: 1

[email protected] From this email the scammer is posting job adverts in a web, where he is offering a great part time job - mystery shopper. 300$ weekly, just for shopping in the shops. Sounds good, but oo good to be true. The first part of the email text looks like :
Hello Prospective Candidate,
How are you? I thank you for your swift e-mail response. At Impact Mystery Shopping we have only one goal and that is to deliver a simple and effective performance management solution. Our job is to discover the facts behind your customer service standards, compliance and other front line activities and enable you to improve all areas of contact year on year to make sure that you are top of your game. Your mystery shopping aims might take the shape of a customer service evaluation scheme, a benchmarking exercise, a customer satisfaction survey - any number of things, we at Impact Mystery Shopping can assist with them all.

That was a big mistake for him to show me the name of company, because exactly in this site I found alerts about this scam. Now I'm having fun with this scammer, showing him the very big interest about this fantastic job and sending him fake applications with fake addresses.

Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 2:15 pm

@ Ezio,
there is a chance this is an advance fee fraud scam, in the sense that the "job" will turn out to be in the UK, the US, Canada or wherever you are NOT, and the lads will direct you to a "lawyer" to get the necessary documents to work in that country.

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 10:59 pm

Elizabeth:
After having gone back and forth with the lad several times, it turns out to be a cheque scam. The lad claims to be running an orphanage and has asked me to set up an account at a specific bank (and a couple of on-line facilities of theirs). He has told me I would receive donation cheques and then forward the money to him. (Obviously those cheques will eventually bounce).
I'm not sure for how much long I can string him along until the drop.