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.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Mega Establishment Co. Ltd.

This is a scam -- probably cheque fraud. All "payment processor" jobs are scams, by the way.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mr. Richard Wang <[redacted (unverifiable)]>
Reply-to: contactmrwang@gmail.com
Date: 2009/8/2 UTC
Subject: Be our company representative
To: ideceive@gmail.com


Mega Establishment Co. Ltd,
Import and Export Deport,
29060 Wang Yuen, Hong Kong,
Email: contactmrwang@gmail.com



My name is Richard Wang, the secretary to Mega Establishment Co. Ltd here in Wang
Yuen, Hong Kong. We are group of enterprise established to import and export all
Kind of goods including companies/Industries Machineries, Electronics and
Spear-Parts ordered by our customers around the Globe, especially Europe, America,
Africa, Asia and Canada.

On behalf of the Mega Establishment/Board of Director, I am pleased to inform you
that Vacancy is open for foreign employment for those who can work as our company
International Representative that can handle the position of Payment receiving
Officer. (TO HELP US STAND AS OUR COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE TO BE RECEIVING PAYMENT FROM OUR CUSTOMERS/CLIENTS)

If you know that you can handle the position, please kindly let us know and forward to
us the following datas:

1. Full Names:
2. Contact Address:
3. Sex:
4. Date of Birth/Age:
5. Phone/Fax Number:
6. Occupation:
7. Company Name/Company Address:
8. Bank Name:

IMPORTANT NOTE: You must be over 21 years of age.

We await your Complete Data for Job processment.

Yours Faithfully,

Richard Wang
Mega Establishment Co. Ltd
Wang Yuen, Hong Kong.


2Consumer

This is a money mule job scam, also reported by bobbear early this month.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Luella Blue <[redacted (unverifiable)]>
Date: 2009/8/8 UTC
Subject: Job for you
To: [redacted (privacy)]


Hello

My name is Alisa Miller. I am a manager of 2Consumer company.
We would like to offer the perspective career to you. We propose a vacancy of the regional agent. The average salary will be about $2000-4500 monthly. You can familiarize with our current vacancy.

REASON : Most customers prefer to pay within their own country and it's much faster than sending an international Money Order. Small companies can't transfer
international transactions. And have restricion to do international transfers. But our personal clients have business in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries, and they can't receive international payments. Your task is receiving and transferring payments to our clients.

You will receive and cash out several types of payments: PayPal payments and Direct Bank Deposit.

1) Your salary is 7% of each payment.
2) You don't need to wait end of month to get paid. Your salary share included to each payment.
3) You not spend your own money. All charges to withdrawal or transfer money shared at payment.
4) Your financial information will never reach to third parts. It's safe, private and secured type of PayPal payments.
5) You can work 1-3 hours per day or fulltime.


To apply for this position or to make an inquiry, please email us ONLY at:  hrconsumer@live.com


Please use the following vacancy code in the header of your email: 2C. Also, please do not forget to include your contact
information (phone and email) in your message.


2Consumer company
Ukraine, Odessa
2 Kulikovskij per 5
Ukraine Support:
+380 (44) 36-29-367
US Fax: 1-800-622-8610
(TOLL FREE, USA)


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Milet Business Company

This spam was sent from IP address 85.105.164.116, which is allocated to an ADSL pool in Turkey. I mention this because it more-or-less explains the weird "from" and "reply-to" addresses on this spam, although I doubt that they were intentional. In any case, the scammer really wants a reply to the "miletbiz@aol.com" address mentioned at the end of the message. As for the scam itself: "finance manager" just screams "money mule scam". Do you really need any more details?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Buddy Hammond <0-zd@static.85-105-42100.ttnet.net.tr>
Reply-to: 0-zd@static.85-105-42100.ttnet.net.tr
Date: 2009/8/1
Subject: Part time job
To: [redacted (privacy)]


Milet Business Company has an open vacancy for a FINANCE MANAGER position.

We do our best to fit all our customers needs as soon as possible. That is why our staff is a professionally trained team, that can solve any problem that occurs on their way. We are not just a group of people, we are a family. We offer you, our potential colleague, to join us. See below, what we can offer you.

General Requirements:

- Be at least 21 years old.

- No special Qualifications Needed.

- Minimal experience and knowledge of basic bank operations.

- Ability to maintain confidentiality of all information.

- Willingness to work at home, take responsibility, set up and achieve goals.

- The ability to create good administrative reporting.

- Honesty, responsibility and promptness in operations.

- The ability to operate with more than one task effectively, and have an adaptable, flexible, professional attitude.

- The ability to keep us in touch, on-time and detailed reporting.

- Ability to work on-line, Internet and e-mail skills.

What we offer you:

- Generous salary (over 3,000.00 USD per month).

- Social benefits and medical insurance.

- Free training and seminars.

- Paid Holidays plus 3 weeks of Paid Time Off (PTO).

This is an easy job, but your help is very important for us and our clients. This job does not require any special education. You wouldn't have to pay us for taking you on our list. However we guarantee stable income.

If you wish to apply for a position, please send your resume only to our e-mail: miletbiz@aol.com


Team Hot Jobs

This spam originated at 41.205.164.231, which WHOIS reports as assigned to Nigeria, the world capital of Advance Fee Fraud and various other misdemeanours. The jobs that they offer you are likely to be "hot" in all the wrong ways -- not to mention that it's a bad idea to hand out loads of personally identifying information to potential fraudsters.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dr. Qumrul Ahsan <[redacted (unverifiable)]>
Reply-to: team.hotjob@gmail.com
Date: 2009/7/29
Subject: Need A Plum Job
To:


Top Of The Day To You,

Need a Plum Job? Do you want us to do your entire job search while you relax
and wait, instead of starring at your pc without tangible result of a good
and exciting job offer? For the last two years, our team of expect has
been studying Europe and Australia cravings for workers but their citizens
are reluctant towards the jobs which are offer to them because of one
reasons or the other; whereas there a lot of people all over the world in
need of the job opportunity.

So a couple of months ago our directives and expert took a big step by
contacting all companies, factories and industries; mega and upcoming for
allow us access to there job vacancy database, so as to make contact to Job
seekers when there is a vacancy in
any of the company... About two months ago, we sent curriculum vitae or
Résumés which were forwarded to us to the companies that had vacancies;
though we did
this as a test every single one of the applicants got a job in with
respective qualification.

If you want that dream job in the EU and AU, contact us with your detailed
C.V attached to your email then we will get back to you within 72hrs

Team Hot Jobs
making job seeking a lot more easy.

SINOCHEM CORPORATION

This is a check fraud scam: you receive fraudulent checks, deposit them in your account, draw on them, send money to scammer via Western Union, then lose everything when the check bounces and the bank accuses you of fraud.

The formatting in this spam is odd (all the "@^}." stuff). I expect that the message was sent by exploiting a bug in a web-to-mail feedback form, and this is a side-effect of the exploit.

This report is nearly a month late because I've been too busy to deal with spam lately.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SINOCHEM CORPORATION <info@telefonica.net> [SPF verified]
Date: 2009/7/19
Subject: KINDLY READ!!
To:


@^}.A new job opening in your Area, It's a work from home/office position and you are not required to pay any registration fee or pay for any application form before you
get employed.

THIS IS WHAT IT ENTAILS:
@^}.Get/receive payment from Clients/Customers.
@^}.Process Payments at your Bank.
@^}.Deduct 1/10 which is your commission/Payment on check
cashed.
@^}.Forward the remaining 9/10 to the information that will
be provided later on.

@^}.SINOCHEM CORPORATION.
@^}.APPLICATION FORM

@^}.FULL NAME:-

@^}.HOME ADDRESS (NOT POST OFFICE BOX):-

@^}.CITY:-

@^}.STATE:-

@^}.ZIP CODE:-

@^}.COUNTRY:-

@^}.AGE:-

@^}.PRESENT/PAST JOB EXPERIENCE:-

@^}.PHONE NUMBERS (Home and Mobile):-

@^}.GENDER:-

Fill the above application so as to qualify you for the
position and send via e-mail to: CONTACTSINOCHEM@AOL.COM
This space is opened till the 4th of August, 2009 (for
USA/CANADA Residence only). Mr. CHEN Guogang Chief Financial
Officer SINOCHEM CORPORATION, China.