Job Offer

[pecandeb]

Wed, 24 May 2006 19:33:20 +0000 (UTC)
From: "charles.jones60@virgin.net" <charles.jones60@virgin.net> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Subject: JOB OFFER

Hello Sir/Madam,
How are you doing today?My name is Charles Jones;I am the Chief Accounts Officer of A.Simons Textiles that sells african/chinese fabrics,i have customers in the US but my company is based in UK,am looking for a representative in the US that can work from home.The company website is www.asimonstextiles.com.Kindly reply to this email if interested and you will be given more details.Hope to hear from you soon.
Charles Jones
A Simons Textiles

[John Fairheart]

pecandeb,

The letter you have posted is typical of a particular type of scam. It is called a 'Money Mule' scam, also known as 'Representative' scam.

The following small articale will explain a little further:-

Representative scam summary (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=257)

You would be asked to take part in the laundering of money. You would take in cheques/wire transfers and be asked to send (via Western Union or similar) a balance of that money, less a 'wage', to someone else.

No legitimate business asks a third party (you) to take in money, remove a 'wage', and then send the balance to another party.

It is 100% scam. Avoid it like the plague.

Invariably, and cheques received would be fake. Once the bank finds out, you would be in serious trouble with the bank, and the local police.

[Fallen39]

i've got a mail from a company name dropngain international in NY offering a job as well for ppl in Australia or NZ. i'm hoping i could get someone to help me out as well. But good luck with yours pecandebs. I kinda have doubts about mine as well. take care.

[Nyla]

As John Fairheart posted earlier, if ANYONE contacts you and offers you a job "processing payments" for them for a commission or a wage, it is sure to be a scam. No legitimate company would have any reason to hire such a "company representative". Companies have all kinds of real and legal alternatives for receiving payments from overseas customers, such as international credit cards, bank transfer, and directly receiving checks or money orders from customers.

If a real company did actually hire someone to receive money on their behalf for a commission and then forward the rest to the company, they and the employee would be guilty of money laundering even if the payment were real. However, the payment is always going to be forged and altered, so you will be out the entire amount of the check/money order you cashed when the bank discovers it. And you could also find yourself facing charges for possession and negotiation of a forged instrument. Be aware that money orders can easily be purchased for low amounts ($1, $5, or $10) and then altered to appear to be for larger amounts (like $1000). And forged checks are quite easily produced these days, thanks to printer quality and the availability of MICR toner at the local office supply store.

In short, if a company offers you a job processing payments for their "foreign customers", stay far, far away. It doesn't matter if they claim to be with a company that actually exists or not. The "company representative" job does not exist. New York companies have a dozen better options for receiving payments than recruiting individuals to launder money for them.

Dropngain in particular was also discussed on this thread.

http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2180&highlight=dropngain

[saintfletcher]

Seek Employment Australia sent me this job offer with some official authoritative endorsement, in presentation. Is a the RAFEA Limited offer a scam? If so, what is Seek Employment doing? Should they be alerted if this is the case?

Silly me, I asked for more information, bugger! But I gave no personal information except my name. I should have known better, but it looked officially from Seek Employment.

Did I go to far? I thought I'd investigate further as it appears similar to the above expamles. How cleaver or devious are such companies in hacking into our computers to try to find accounts? Could Seek Employment be held accountable for those assuming that their good name has credibility?

-saintfletcher

---

JOB DESCRIPTION
Agent's work consists in receiving payment from customers and making further payments to our main office or to one of our regional affiliate departments, depending on the customer's location.
Being a part-time job, it should not take more than 2 hours per day.
Agent's commission is 5% from each transaction (for instance: you receive $2000.00 to your bank account, you will withdraw the money and keep $100 as payment for your service). All further money transfer charges and fees are covered by our company. So you will be responsible just for making proper payments in time.
Each transaction will be made only after prior notification by phone call or e-mail.

Requirements:
Adults only
Residents of Australia
Owners of a computer with e-mail access
2-3 hours free time within the work day
Owners of a bank account (checking or savings) or willing to open one.

E-mail us today at HrRafeaLtd@aol.com for more details on joining our part time employees or for an immediate start.

RAFEA Limited
12 Naxou Street
19002 Paiania
Greece

[Nyla]

As I stated above, NO company, no matter where it is located, should EVER ask you to accept and process payments on their behalf from customers for a commission. It would be money laundering, which is a federal offense virtually everywhere that I'm aware of. This is a scam.

And no real company, except for AOL, should be using a free AOL address for their human resources department. AOL offers free webmail to anyone who asks for it. The email address returns zero hits in Google. Not a very well advertised "HR department".

And no, Seek Employment is not in any way responsible nor does it endorse any job offer you might get through their site. They very plainly state in their Terms that they do not verify, recommend, or endorse any job offer you receive. Verifying the job is your responsibility. As a newspaper classified ad is not verified by the newspaper, Seek does not check out the business.

http://www.seek.com.au/general_id_items/content/terms.ascx

SEEK does not endorse or recommend any of the jobs, business or self-employment opportunities advertised on its Site and SEEK strongly recommends that prior to entering into any agreement with any of the Advertisers on the Site, that you obtain your own independent legal, accounting, financial or taxation advice as appropriate. It is solely your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of all opinions, advice, services, merchandise and other information provided through the Site or on the Internet generally.

They also do not endorse sites they link to.

SEEK is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by SEEK of the linked site. SEEK is not responsible for the copyright compliance of any linked site. SEEK will not be liable for any damages or loss arising in any way out of or in connection with or incidental to any information or third party service provided by any third party.


You shouldn't have to worry about hacking, particularly, and as long as you gave them no personal information beyond your email address, you should be safe. If the job offer was linked to Seek or sent through their site, it would probably be a good idea to alert them of the scam. http://www.seek.com.au/if.asp?loc=abh

If the scammer is a member, they can remove the account, if not, they may at least consider posting a warning somewhere on the site, denoting that this is a scam.