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, May 11, 2009

Iron Words Inc.

A search shows that this particular scam has been circulating since at least 2008, but I can't see it in my own archives anywhere, and it's still active, so here 'tis. This job has been widely advertised on lots of employment ad websites. Watch out, folks: those employment ad websites rarely (if ever) verify that the advertisers are legitimate!

Although the job description is short on details, it clearly involves receiving and forwarding money, making it one of the usual variations on fraud of that sort. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that this one is a money mule scam, where the "employee" is asked to forward stolen money. Money comes in by direct bank transfer (fraudulent), and goes out via Western Union. It could be cheque fraud, though.

I received two copies of this spam, each with different (but similarly constructed) Gmail contact addresses.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [redacted (false, random)]
Date: 2009/5/5
Subject: Vacancy
To: [redacted (privacy)]


Hello

My name is John Maziarski. I am a Main HR Manager of the Iron Words Inc.

We have used web-sites job-boards to find and choose some candidates
in which, according to their resumes, we are interested. You happened
to be one of them. We are glad to represent you our new recruitment
campaign and offer you to join our enlarging working team! The Iron
Words Inc is searching for bright and responsible people from all over
USA, Canada and EU. The Iron Words Inc is a constantly developing
world wide consulting company, which is located in USA and has its
branch-offices in Europe.

We are about to advance our sphere of influence by setting several
more branch-offices in different countries. Because of crisis and
increase of the clients, which use our services and the enlargement of
our services demand-rate in some world regions we have decided to
create more branch-offices in order to work more sufficiently!

Our company searches for worthy, responsible and reliable people, who
would like to become a representatives of our staff.

The position we offer you is part-time. See the position description
below:

WE WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH:
-Unlimited Growth Potential
-Flexible Schedule
-Paid Training
-Worthy Income

YOU UNDERTAKE TO HAVE/BE:
-Positive Attitude
-Reliability
-Diligence
-Persistence
-Motivation
-Ambition to Succeed

CUSTOMER MANAGER
Responsibilities:
Performance and realization of the company's financial plan, which
will depend on the overall company strategy, as it is agreed with
Managing Director, Fulfillment of a clear Finance distribution with
Managing Director and our management team. Communication and prompt
processing of incoming money transfers from our clients and partners
in a real-time mode.

Salary:
2500 USD per month for 2-7 hours of work per week + bonus-salary for
the successful results. Usually our Customer Manager has a salary of
about 3000-6000 USD per month.

Education and Experience:
- Bachelor's degree (optional).
- Program and Project Management experience (preferred).
- Strong communication and influence skills.

Knowledge and Skills:
- Demonstrated ability of maintenance of the priorities balance.
- Knowledge of technology.
- Ability to work both independently and in a team.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in both analytical and technical subjects.
- Strong discussion and influence skills, particularly within the framework of customer interactions.

Requirements:
- US, CA Citizenship.
- Valid TAX ID/TIN
- PC with the access to the Internet.
- Valid DL or any other ID with a photograph.
- Home phone and mobile phone.

If you are interested in this kind of job, please, reply us with your
Resume with all the questions you have and we will answer you as soon
as possible, providing all the answers to your questions. You will be
also given a complete information about the company itself.


Please reply ONLY to our e-mail:  hr.manager.iron.words.inc@gmail.com



Main Branch of Iron Words Inc:                European Branches of Iron Words Inc:
6034 Lakehurst                                Pohjoisesplanadi 28 B 12
Dallas, Tx 75230,                             FI-00550 Helsinki,
United States                                 Finland
Phone: (214) 432-3742                         Phone: (09) 2315 9292

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is wonderful he is on Craigs list today May 21st amazing

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/ofc/1181605901.html

Anonymous said...

LA too..
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/csr/1182057250.html

Anonymous said...

yeah.. theres usually alot of scammers online doing this.. practically half of the ads are fake from what i receive when they send emails.

Anonymous said...

They scraped the address of a residential property in Dallas. I have reported this to the FBI.

Anonymous said...

Received an e-mail today from Don Wolfrum of Iron Words, Inc. Obviously still quite active!

maggie said...

I received this email today, almost verbatim, so just wanted to post that it is still out there. Job seeker, BEWARE!!!

Anonymous said...

I've just received an email from Don Wolfrum at Iron Words Inc. Thank you for having this website to call them out and inform the honest people. Especially with so many vulnerable people being unemployed.

Unknown said...

I just received the same email from Don!

Anonymous said...

Thank You so Much for having this page up! I was not sure if this offer was true and decided to make check it out and Thank God i did. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Just received the same email today at work in Los Angeles. I guess they're still going at it. Same address in TX.