To Believe or Not Believe?

[Stumpnin]

Micheal Martins, for Actexo & Fabrics, Ltd. asking me to a repersveative for them. I recieve 10% for every transaction, as long as I cash Money orders/ US checks, and wire the rest to lawyer/agent in London. I have already recieved checks and went to cash but bank held the checks. I'm still waiting on reply from bank to hear of anything else. Everything looked legitmate and legal to me, as I have copies. Is this a scam or not?

[Goz]

Hi Stumpnin, welcome to Fraudwatchers!

This is a classic scam. Joe has written an article about it here. (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=257)

The checks and money orders that you have been sent are fraudulent. The bank will be taking extra precautions to check their validity but EVEN IF THE BANK SAYS THEY ARE OK THEY ARE STILL FAKES! It can take the bank several months to discover the checks are fraudulent due to the complexity of the clearing process.

Do not wire any money to the scammers - if you do then the money will be lost.

[Aeval]

The proposal you received is a scam, and the checks are fraudulent.

Of course, it may look pretty good. It seems like easy money, you don't have to jump through hoops to get a job, you don't have to make any investments and the return on the money for your time spent on the job is huge. And that's exactly what's wrong with it. The things I mentioned above are tell tale signs of a scam in progress.

You can encounter those scams arriving directly into your inbox, but you can also encounter them on pretty much every online job site. It's a small investment for a scammer to place a job ad in order to con unsuspecting victims into participation.

Some brutal facts:

1. Legitimate companies do not turn to the general public for payment processing.

2. Legitimate companies always operate within the bounds of the tax laws of the country where they do business. Having money processed this way is nothing short of tax evasion. Have you ever heard of Microsoft offering people this kind of employment? No? Neither have I.

3. In the day and age of electronic processing of payments, any company, no matter how small, has access to secure means of accepting payments from their customers. There are credit card processing services, escrow services and a myriad of ways for a business to make it easy for their customers to make payments.

4. Any job offer that seems to good to be true, is too good to be true. In today's economy, well paying jobs are increasingly difficult to come by, and obtaining one is often connected with a lenghty approval process, often involving background checks and credit history verification. If suddenly someone wants to offer you a job that is well paying and easy, that would be the time to seriously reconsider such an offer.

And here's what can happen to you once the "job" turns out to be a scam:

1. The checks that you deposited with your bank will inevitably come back as fraudulent. At that time you will owe your bank all the money that the deposited checks were made out for. The bank can and will come after you for payment.

2. The bank can also contact law enforcement to report this kind of activity on your account. Should you have any doubts about the attitude of the law enforcement towards victims of such scams, here's a little 101:

The law enforcement will most probably not treat you as a victim. You may end up being labeled an accomplice. Also, in pretty much any civilized country, possession and\or passing of a forged financial instrument is a crime that carries hefty penalties with it. Don't take my word for it, here is an article telling stories of people who are victims of check scams:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/05/eveningnews/consumer/main587162.shtml

To sum it up: the job offer you received is not legit. You are risking your financial stability and clean record if you go forward with those transactions.

If you have any questions or need advice, ask away.

[Stumpnin]

Thank you for your response as I have been waiting for something to hear about it. The comonay hasn't gotten back with me about it either, so that tells me that its a bad idea to go on. Thanks again!

[Unregistered]

THIS WAS SENT TO ME IN RESPONSE TO MY RESUME POSTED ON A CAREER SITE. IT LOOKED FISHY SO I DECIDED TO LOOK AROUND-THANKS FOR POSTING, MY GUT WAS RIGHT.

=======================================================
Good day,



My name is Alexander Yatch, Executive Marketing officer for SUSAN BROWN INVESTMENT . I saw your advert on the web for employment and will be so glad to have you as our agent if you ' ' ' 're still looking for job.



We ' ' ' 've been selling our products for the past years and we ' ' ' 're lately facing serious difficulties when it comes to selling our products to Americans because most customers offer to pay with a US MONEY ORDER/ CASHIER CHECK, which is difficult for us to cash here. We are looking for a representative in the States who will be working for us as a part time worker and we are willing to pay 10% for every transaction.



We need someone who would be helping in receiving payments from our clients in the States. An agent who is responsible and reliable that will be handling the payment aspect. The payment will be addressed and sent to you and all you need do is to get it cashed, deduct your percentage and wire the balance back to any of our accountants/lawyers in our regional warehouses. The problem we have is getting someone that is really capable and trustworthy as though we surely have our way of getting anyone that tried to get away with our money. The FBI will surely be interested and get involved.



This offer is not going to cost you any amount because all you need to do is to receive payments which will be sent to you via delivery courier from our clients, which would come in form of a money order/check get it cashed and send the cash to our accountants/lawyers via MONEYGRAM MONEY TRANSFER, and required charges for all transfer should be deducted from the money. If you ' ' ' 're interested.kindly get back to me ASAP via this email alexander_yatch418@yahoo.com so that i can provide you with more informations about the jobs.



Looking forward to your response.





Yours Faithfully



Alexander yatch

Director Of payment

Phone Number +17402876141

alexander_yatch418@yahoo.com



SUSAN BROWN INVESTMENT

8.3 MILES NW

240 KINGSBURY Rd,

LONDON, NW9 0BG

UK

Tel: +44-703-190-7869

[Aeval]

I am in mood for taking scams apart today, so let's take a stab at the one posted above. :thumbup1:

My name is Alexander Yatch, Executive Marketing officer for SUSAN BROWN INVESTMENT . I saw your advert on the web for employment and will be so glad to have you as our agent if you're still looking for job.

A quick Google search on Susan Brown Investment reveals quite a few of job postings on various career sites. And yet, the very first search result is from Scam.com, where someone targeted by the very same scam posted an inquiry. What the search does not reveal is very telling as well - this company does not have any online presence. This is where we start getting suspicious.

We've been selling our products for the past years and we're lately facing serious difficulties when it comes to selling our products to Americans because most customers offer to pay with a US MONEY ORDER/ CASHIER CHECK, which is difficult for us to cash here.

Considering that the vast majority of purchases in the United States are made with credit\debit cards, that statement is truly hard to believe.

We are looking for a representative in the States who will be working for us as a part time worker and we are willing to pay 10% for every transaction.

The 10% is quite a standard percentage offered to the potential "employee" in payment processing scams.

We need someone who would be helping in receiving payments from our clients in the States. An agent who is responsible and reliable that will be handling the payment aspect. The payment will be addressed and sent to you and all you need do is to get it cashed, deduct your percentage and wire the balance back to any of our accountants/lawyers in our regional warehouses.

And here is where the scam unfolds. What they are asking you here is to get involved in a criminal enterprise that at the very least exposes you to charges of uttering a forged instrument (cashing\depositing a fake check) and\or brings up the charge of mail\wire fraud as well.

Make no mistake, the law enforcement would hardly take keenly to an explanation that you were "just working."

The problem we have is getting someone that is really capable and trustworthy as though we surely have our way of getting anyone that tried to get away with our money. The FBI will surely be interested and get involved.

The scammers really like to get the FBI "involved" and threaten potential victims with that particular federal law enforcement agency. The FBI might just get involved, not in recovering money and handing it back to the scammer - but rather in investigating the person who is processing the payments.

Alexander yatch
Director Of payment
Phone Number +17402876141
alexander_yatch418@yahoo.com

And here we have a few more pointers that this is a scam. The email address is a free, web based email service. Anyone can open such an account, at any time, without providing any personally identifying information. That's why scammers like those services so much.

Needless to say, a serious company would hardly be contacting prospective employees via a free web mail account.

The phone number is registered to L3 Communications, one of the major Voice Over IP providers in the United States. In other words, it's an internet based number, and the person answering the phone could be pretty much anywhere in the world, as long as they have an internet connection available.

SUSAN BROWN INVESTMENT
8.3 MILES NW
240 KINGSBURY Rd,
LONDON, NW9 0BG
UK
Tel: +44-703-190-7869

And yet another interesting tidbit. The address given above is a location for an Enterprise Rent-A-Car office. Hardly a valid address for Susan Brown Investment.

The telephone number is a so-called "follow me" number. Those can be registered in the UK, and are very often used by various scammers because of the ability to forward the calls incoming to such a number to another number anywhere in the world. So, you think you are calling someone who is in the United Kingdom, while actually speaking with a scammer sitting in an internet cafe in Lagos, Nigeria.

To sum it up:

- Legitimate companies do not seek out employees via unsolicited offer through the internet. The job market is saturated enough for companies being able to pick and choose from people who approach them directly.

- Legitimate companies, especially those that sell goods\services have a wide variety of means at their disposal in order to accept payments from their customers. International banking networks have been in place for quite a while, and legitimate companies utilize those in their normal course of business. They have no need for anyone to "work from home" in order to process checks\money orders for them.

[Slartibartfast]

SUSAN BROWN INVESTMENT

8.3 MILES NW

240 KINGSBURY Rd,

LONDON, NW9 0BG

UK

Tel: +44-703-190-7869
Number is Magrathea Telecoms

[FW Admin]

... and reported.

[hilbrow]

Just received this Sullivan donor collector proposal.I could tell it was too good to be true,then I did my own investigation and discovered FRAUDWATCHERS.ORG,I even signed a fake contract with them and now they promised me that I will get my first assignment with a seperate email instructing me what to do when I received the first donor cheque.

Thank God,for people like you all,you just served me from a big problem which could have damaged my credit history and possibly ended me being jailed,now I know what to do.They now operate under the name of Chester Sullivan International Organisation,their website is www.csullivanhome.org.

Just read this email this idiot sent me an hour ago

"Dear.........,

Your first donation will be delayed because of the holidays(Thanks giving holiday)

You should probably receive your first donation by Tuesday,

I will email you separately with the processing instructions and keep you updated.



Sincerely, Donald Lynch
Donald.Lynch@csullivanhome.org

www.csullivanhome.org

Chester Sullivan Organization

I hope nobody will fall prey to this kind of scam again.

Yours nearly burnt young enterpreneur,

hilbrow