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.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Olpio Solutions INC (and similar)

Thanks guys! These scammers have been so kind as to send me a scam job offer directly. Keep up the good work!

"Olpio Solutions" appears to be a completely made-up name, with no hits in Google at the time of composing this report. Based on information from their website, it's clear that this is a cheque ("check" in the USA) fraud scam: they send you forged cheques, and want you to cash them and wire back the cash. Cheques can bounce after you draw on them in most cases, so you'll wind up personally out of pocket quite a large amount for your efforts.

Here is an extract of the WHOIS data for their domain.

   Domain Name: OLPIO-SOLUTIONS.COM
   Registrar: ACTIVE REGISTRAR, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.activeregistrar.com
   Referral URL: http://www.activeregistrar.com
   Name Server: NS123.MDWEBHOSTING.COM.AU
   Name Server: NS124.MDWEBHOSTING.COM.AU
   Updated Date: 29-oct-2008
   Creation Date: 29-oct-2008
   Expiration Date: 29-oct-2009

A little further digging reveals that this scam is an old scam with a cosmetic name-change. An almost identical site is currently operating under the name "Apex Websolutions", and registered only a month and a half ago.

   Domain Name: APEX-WEBSOLUTIONS.COM
   Registrar: ACTIVE REGISTRAR, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.activeregistrar.com
   Referral URL: http://www.activeregistrar.com
   Name Server: NS56.EUKDNS.COM
   Name Server: NS57.EUKDNS.COM
   Updated Date: 16-sep-2008
   Creation Date: 15-sep-2008
   Expiration Date: 15-sep-2009

Oh, wait! There's more. These guys are also known by the following names and domains.
Ugh! Too much work! It seems like this scam has been ongoing since at least 09-may-2007, with the domain "edesigns-worldwide.com" and fake business name "Edesigns Worldwide INC". Search this linked page for those terms to see a scam report dated 13-May-2007. Note that these scammers prefer to register their domain names using the "Whois Proof" (whoisproof.com) anonymisation service.

You can't possibly keep up with all these names, can you? Thankfully you don't have to! Just refuse all job offers that involve processing payments, because they're all scams!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Martinez A Carlos <carlosm@olpio-solutions.com>
Date: 2008/11/1
Subject: New Job Available for Ideceive@gmail.com : Accounts Payable Manager/Payments Processor
To: ideceive@gmail.com


Dear Applicant,

We have an exciting opportunity with our company for: Accounts Payable Manager/Payments Processor  in your area with no need of relocation


Job Snapshot

Compensation: $85,000 - $95,000 per year
Employee Type: Full-Time Employee
Manages Others: Yes

Job Type:

Accounting
Finance
Admin - Clerical
Customer Service

Desired Education Level: High School
Experience: N/A
Required Travel: NO
Relocation: NO



Requirements

Must have Microsoft Office Intermediate experience, checking emails 3 times/day.

For more details please visit our website and see the job description:

 

Terms and Conditions

 

(Click on the link above to get to our webpage and read all our terms and conditions for the job)
 

Please read them carefully and reply to this email if you agree and comply with them with the information required. Even if you do not agree with them please let us know so we can keep looking for someone who can help us!
 

Thank you!
 

Carlos A Martinez

General Manager

Olpio Solutions INC

 

This email has been sent on behalf of Olpio Solutions INC to Ideceive@gmail.com


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

omg! thanks for the heads up i just got the e-mail today and cut and pasted the company name on a google search... you came up.. great web site... thank you so much...Nick in Omaha

Anonymous said...

Yeah I got this email and I knew it looked to good to be true. To get paid $85,000 a year just to cash checks and send money around? Not possible.