Suckers Wanted: Royal York Hotel, Canada (not)

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.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Royal York Hotel, Canada (not)

This particular scam has been sent to me as a Yahoo! meeting invitation. This is an uncommon but not completely unknown method of spamming, favoured by the less technically sophisticated scammers of the world. The theme of "work in a Canadian hotel" is also popular with this breed of scammer: just search this blog for the terms "Canada" and "hotel" to see what I mean. Anyhow, this scam has been around for so long that the actual company behind the Royal York Hotel, Fairmont, has a fraud warning on its "Fairmont Careers" website (to which you should go if you are genuinely interested in working for them). I repeat this warning here for your information.

Please note a recent scam involves soliciting individuals for international employment via e-mail using various internet based e-mail accounts that use the Fairmont name. Individuals are then asked to provide copies of their personal identification and to send money in order to process the application.

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has not authorized this form of communication and no such recruitment program is being offered or sanctioned by our company. These offers are fraudulent. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has notified the authorities to investigate.

If you receive an offer of employment but are unsure if it is legitimate, please contact pathfinder@fairmont.com.

If you have been a victim of this scheme, please contact your local police department to report the matter.

If you intend to contact Fairmont at the above address, you should probably check their website to determine whether the address is still current. Save them and yourself some bother though: assume that anything originating from a Yahoo! email address is a complete fake, for a start.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Employeet Real <employeetreal@yahoo.com>
Date: 2008/9/10
Subject: LIVE AND WORK IN REAL ROYAL YORK HOTEL CANADA
To: ideceive@gmail.com

You're invited to:		LIVE AND WORK IN REAL ROYAL YORK HOTEL CANADA
By your host:		Employeet Real

Message:		Employment Opportunities 2008 The management of The Real Royal York Hotel, Canada, wishes to advertise through this medium that there are Job Vacancies in our Hotel. Due to the expansion in our services and the opening of new outlets the hotel needs both men and women to fill in different categories of job openings. Currently, Canada is experiencing a decline in Lab our force and as such we seek serious minded please get back to us employinfoyorkhotel@yahoo.ca

Date:		Tuesday September 9, 2008
Time:		7:00 pm - 8:00 pm (GMT +00:00)

Will you attend?		RSVP to this invitation

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: i got a same kinda e mail from
Coral Logan logan.coral@gmail.com
its realy a scam its advisable to call in hotel an ask them about this person detail these suckers are fake; 8:19 pm, May 15, 2009

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About This Blog

This blog is an offshoot of iDeceive, which documents deceptive Internet activity. For more general information, please go to that blog. All entries posted here are employment scams. If you've received an email that resembles anything posted here, you'd be well advised to assume that the sender wants to exploit you, not employ you. Scammers often impersonate real companies. Where real company names are mentioned here, you should assume that a scammer is using that identity fraudulently unless you have strong evidence to the contrary.

What is a money mule?

The vast majority of job scams seek to recruit money mules, usually under titles like "financial manager", "payment processor", "transaction specialist", or just plain "representative" or even "partner". The job of a money mule is to be a financial middle-man, accepting payment in one form, and forwarding it (minus a fee) to another party, usually via Western Union. Scammers employ money mules to launder money on their behalf: the mule is responsible for converting a fraudulent transaction of some kind into quick, anonymous cash, usually transferred via Western Union or some similar scheme. Scammers send out a lot of job ads for money mule positions and never refuse an applicant because they are disposable: money mules either get ripped off directly (as when they are persuaded to bank a forged cheque or money order which is later dishonoured by the bank), or take the blame for defrauding someone else (as with most payments involving direct bank transfer, PayPal, or similar). Don't make an ass of yourself: don't be a money mule.

Suckers Wanted

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Royal York Hotel, Canada (not)

1 comment:

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