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.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Sales Executive Representative

This scam targets Australians, so I assume it's a money mule scam involving direct funds transfers between bank accounts and forwarding the proceeds overseas via Western Union. The scammers do not provide a company name, fictitious or otherwise. They are using several Gmail addresses in addition to the one shown here. It's curious that they ask for "U.S. authorized work status", but presumably that's just because they've mixed up their localisation in a copy/paste error.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [redacted (false, random)]
Date: 2008/7/9 UTC
Subject: Work for you
To: redacted (privacy)]


Dear Partner,

Our firm has an opening in our Australian department for a Sales Executive Representative position. This will be a part-time/home based position and the applicant must have the following qualifications:

>E-mail access and ability to work 4 hours a day
>MS Word, MS Excel, PDF qualification
>U.S. authorized work status
>Cell phone for urgent duties
>Adult age
>Higher education


Starting salary is 2,000.00 AUD per month + 5% commission from every processed customer (over 4,500.00 AUD monthly).

Send your resume to: sherman.diane76@gmail.com
If you require any additional information please contact [E-MAIL].

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

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