Job scam quick guide: it's a scam if...

  • they want you to collect and forward money in any way (a "money mule" job). You'll wind up engaged in money laundering, personally defrauded via expertly forged cheques, money orders, etc, or defrauding someone else who pays for goods that never arrive.
  • they want you to receive packages and reship them somewhere else. The goods will have been obtained fraudulently, and they're just using you to make the shipping address appear local. You will be aiding fraud.
  • they want up-front payment (either to them or someone else) of any sort for anything before you can get the job. This is advance fee fraud: there is no job -- it's just a big con to extract money from you.
  • they want you to buy any kind of "membership" or "kit" in order to start. Forget it -- it's not a real job at all: they're trying to sell you something, and they're probably making a bunch of other false claims about it if they're pitching it as a "job".
  • it's a job offer, and it's spam. There are LOTS of these scams about, as you can see.

Monday, October 22, 2007

General Consulting Corp

"General Consulting Corp" is a lame name, but I suppose there is at least one real business out there that uses it. In this particular case, the name is pure fiction, not intended to impersonate any real company by that name. The spam provides no details about the job, but I'll place a large bet that it's a money mule job involving receipt of fraudulent bank transfers and forwarding the proceeds via Western Union.

Note that this scammer uses "mailto" links pointing to the address "GenralConsltCo@gmail.com" (and a couple of other close variations) with subject "LetsTry". They may well be using Gmail's filtering capabilities to forward mail with that particular subject to some other account. The choice of subject suggests that this technique may be an experiment on their part.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: GENERAL CONSULTING CORP <[redacted (false)]>
Date: 20 Oct 2007 17:33
Subject: There is nothing impossible
To: [redacted (privacy)]

Job in your city

Sales manager
Positions available: 15
Region: Australia
Earnings: 2200-3500 AUD
Test period: ONE MONTH
Occupation: part-time (2-4 hours per day)

Job description:
  • manage online sales
  • answer project related e-mails/calls

  • Project executive
    Positions available: 19
    Region: Australia
    Earnings: 1300-2800 AUD
    Test period: ONE MONTH
    Occupation: part-time (2-4 hours per day)

    Job description:
  • answer project related e-mails/calls
  • manage project related tasks


  • Application form
    To start the application process please fill in the form below and send it back to our email: GenralConsltCo@gmail.com

    First Name:
    Last Name:
    City:
    Tel:
    E-mail:

    Additional information about yourself :

    SEND REPLY

    GENERAL CONSULTING CORP has obtained your contact details from public internet sources.

    © Copyright 2004-2007 GENERAL CONSULTING CORP

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