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, March 02, 2009

Sydney Oil LLC

I have received a couple of notices in the last few days about a scam operating under the name of Sydney Oil LLC. This is a check/money order fraud scam targeting victims in North America: the scammers send forged checks/money orders to their victim employees, and the employees are asked to send back cash via Western Union. When the fraudulent nature of the checks/money orders is discovered, the bank or other institution which cashed them will take its money back, leaving the victim out of pocket as the victim of fraud.

The scammers do not represent any company: the name "Sydney Oil" is just one of many random names that these scammers have used over time. At the time of writing, the domain name "sydneyoil.com" is hosted by Google Apps. It has been registered for a surprisingly long time, although still less than one year. It's possible that these scammers plan their future scam names well in advance to make them look less suspicious.

   Domain Name: SYDNEYOIL.COM
   Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
   Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
   Name Server: NS57.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
   Name Server: NS58.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
   Updated Date: 28-aug-2008
   Creation Date: 28-aug-2008
   Expiration Date: 28-aug-2009

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009
Subject: HAND BOOK 1.0
From: adminstaff@sydneyoil.com
To: adminstaff@sydneyoil.com

HAND BOOK 1.0

This simple guide was put together to help you learn the ropes and is subject to the application of intuition in the real job environment.

The nature of your job and job description is simple. And below are five guidelines that should lead you to accomplish your first transaction and subsequent transactions.

5 STEPS

1. Track and Receive Customer Payments

2. Deposit or Cash Payments

3. Deduct Percentage Salary

4. Send Companies Balance

5. Log Book

STEP 1 - Track and Receive Customer Payments

After orders are sealed on our end, payments will be sent out to you via Courier service. Mostly FedEx or UPS. Tracking numbers to these payments will be emailed to you.

Kindly visit the site
www.ups.com or www.fedex.com input the tracking issued to you and you will be able to see the status of the package in transit to you.

This is so you are aware of the delivery time and you make yourself or someone available to
receive the payments from the courier service.


STEP 2 - Deposit or Cash Payments

once payments are in your possession kindly go to your bank and have the payments (MONEY ORDERS) deposited for 24hrs . If you can get cash immediately better, then proceed with step 3.

(Kindly have in mind that the sooner you complete a transaction, the sooner another payment is sent to you. You will not receive another transaction until a pending transaction is completed.)

Time is of essence, so I suggest all transactions are completed within a space of 48hrs.


STEP 3 - Deduct Percentage Salary

kindly deduct 8% from the cash at hand.

The efficiency and Speed you use in handling your fir st transaction will go a long way in determining the size of the next amount you will receive, this way you hold your promotion to handling larger payments in your own hands.


STEP 4 - Send Companies Balance

An email will be sent to you detailing appointed delegates to receive the companies balance. Kindly locate
a western union agent office close to you and have the monies sent to the delegates from there.

Once payments are sent off, kindly email the sending details back to me which will include the following;

MTCN (Money Transfer Control Number)
Test Question and Answer
Total Amount sent.

Be careful to avoid typographical errors when sending payment details from Western Union and emailing
details back to me.

NOTE: Western Union Charges are to be deducted from the company's remaining balance and not from your percentage pay.

To find Western Union Agent location please dial 1-800-325-6000 and follow the voice prompts.

STEP 5 - Log Book

Once you have completed all four steps above, go to your Log Book and enter the following;

Name of Re miter on Check
Amount of payment Received
Date Received
Date you sent Western Union
How much Sent
To which delegate you sent payment via Western Union

The log book can also be a Note Pad on your PC.

This marks the full completion of your transaction.


If you have questions on any of these 5 steps, kindly contact me via email and i will reach you
as soon as possible.

You are required to reply this email with a ''YES'' as subject to indicate your continued interest in the job offer.
Please also confirm your Full Name and Address (including city and state).


Thank you once again,
Rob Cole.
Sydney Oil LLC


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I applied for this job at Sydney Oil,LLC Australia. Luckily I read this article. I am really skeptical
of this & doing a lot reseach including calling the BBB, Austrialian Embassy. I cannot get
answer from this people about this
Sydney Oil,LLC. Until I found this
blog. Thank you I will go back to my email & reject this offer.

Anonymous said...

THEY ARE A TOTAL SCAM I HAVE BEEN RIPPED OFF AND NOW I AM ON THE HOOK FOR JUST UNDER $19000 I did some homework when they contacted me I googled sydney oil and applied directly through the website after they had gotten my resume through a online job site. DONT BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SCAM
EVEYONE WHO RESPONDS THEY HAVE EVEN THREATED ME PERSONALLY AND I HAVE STARTED TO KEEP A FILE WITH EVERY THING ALL EMAILS HAVE BEEN FORWARDED TO THE POLICE

Unknown said...

Even after I told these people via email that I do NOT want any money to launder for them, they still sent their phony (we checked at the Post Office) money orders. All emails will be sent to the Post Office for Federal prosecution.

Does anyone know if they are foreign or in the States?

Anonymous said...

The web site I received is in the Netherlands. It smelled of a scam to me too. Fronm the reading here, it is worse than just bogus checks. http://www.sydbasepetrochem.co.nr
Thank You
Lonnie Price
SYDNEY OIL AUS
Registered office: 1st - 3rd Floor, Prospero House
241 Borough High Street
London SE1 1GA UK
Phone: (44) 871 503 9511
(44) 700 580 8026
Fax: (44) 700 580 8027

Anonymous said...

SYDNEY OIL, LLC ALMOST GOT ME ARRESTED!!
A representive send me four blank money orders(except for the buyers information) totalling $3000. They wanted me to keep 8% of this money. They also sent me an e-mail as to where to sent the money next... ROMANIA. If it looks, smells, and acts like of a money laundering scam, then it is one.
I contacted my local sheriff's office and turned over the money orders, e-mail instructions and a copy of this article. The sheriff working my case stated that 1)if I had followed the instructions, I would have been arresrted and 2) this case will probably be sent over to the FBI for furter investigations.
I just hope this case gets solved REAL soon. It is terrible that Sydney Oil, LLC could prey on the unemployed / under-employed especially in the recession of 2009 in order to do whatever it is that keeps them on the fly.

Anonymous said...

thank you for sharing this :)i got this mail in the morning and was sure it's a spam! So i checked on google i find your page:))thanks again!