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Scams using these names:
Learn To Be Rich, Charlotte, Admin Support
Mike Moshay or Ninette Hinkle
Did you reply to a listing on CraigsList.com for a job or did you receive an
email through them from Mike Moshay or Ninette Hinkle of "Learn To Be Rich" in Charlotte (or ANYWHERE
else) offering you a job as a "Admin Support"? But oddly, they require you to pay
a fee up front? No legitimate job offer would require you to pay
them to be considered for employment.
At some point in the scam, you will either:
- be asked to send money via Western Union to pay a fee or
- you will receive a very authentic looking check, which will later turn
out to be a forgery, after you have sent part of the money from the check
via Western Union to the scammer or elsewhere.
It is an AFF / Money transfer Scam.
They'll send you counterfeit checks which you are supposed to deposit, take out
some amount, and then MoneyGram or Western
Union wire the remaining 90%. There's
a reason for this: Western Union and MoneyGrams are cashed immediately and are
untraceable and irretrievable. Bank checks can take 1 or 2 weeks to clear!
Of course, since the check is fake, it will bounce a week or so later after
you deposit it. But you have already moneygram'ed the scammers the 90% of
the amount, and that is transacted almost instantly. So you now owe the
bank for the full amount. You may also face criminal charges for passing
counterfeit checks. See
this page for a step-by-step explanation of how the scam unfolds.
In the email below, there are some many red flags, we can't imagine any way
it could be legitimate. Any time any potential employer asks you to send
money via Western Union, IT MUST BE A SCAM. No legitimate company would transfer
money this way. They will all have access to a more secure bank wire or
direct deposit method.
Other clues that this is a scam are:
- The correspondence contains very odd phrases, strange syntax, poor
spelling, poor grammar, capitalization and punctuation. Clearly not
written by an educated business professional.
- The emails are sent OR replied to from a free email account (yahoo,
hotmail, gmail, live.com, aol.com, etc.) not a company domain address.
- There is no verifiable company physical address and phone number
- There is no company website or it is clearly shoddy and unprofessional
- Notice that they say "you must have good grammar skills"... which if
THEY used good grammar, would have said: "you must have good grammatical
skills"
- "What is your why in life"? What does THAT have to do with a job offer
to work from home?
Do you have a resume posted online? We'd like to hear from you about your
experiences recruiting emails that turned out to be scams or misleading -
click here to write us.
Any highlighted
passages in the actual scam email below are to draw your attention to clues (the
highlighting itself was not present in the original email).
Comments from the victim (George Z.):
They had a job posting on Craigslist for Admin Support
in Charlotte. I've already reported this to folks at Craigslist. This is very
upsetting considering so many people looking for legitimate work out there. I have included my email correspondence below.
First email from the scammer:
-----Original Message-----
From: Learn To Be Rich pk
[mailto: adprocessingmadeeazypk24@gmail.com ]
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 5:09 PM
To: George Z
Subject: Re: Admin Support (Charlotte, NC)
Hello George,
I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. We have
had an overwhelming response to our ad and I'm just now getting to your email.
Thank you for your interest in this position! First,
let
me assure you that this is a legitimate job offer for a legitimate work from
home position. We are not an MLM, no surveys, just simple customer service and
simple processing of new hires through HR. We represent some of the best work
from home companies in the world. We will provide you with the website and
additional information of the specific company you will be working for, along
with your job offer, should you be the candidate we feel is best suited for
these positions. You will be given a contract to sign upon completion of your
probationary period.
Due to recent growth, we must outsource to help with the
increase of our customer demand. We are in need of immediate assistance, however
we must be selective in the individuals we choose. Our team members are dealing
with our customers and customer satisfaction is above the up most importance to
our success! Although, you will never be physically or verbally in contact with
our customers (all email based), we still require our team members to be
professional, efficient, and courteous. Being that almost 100% of this business
is done online and via email, it can be new territory for some, however very
easy to become accustomed to and in favor of. We are here to help this be any
easy transition for our new team members. You will see after the first couple
weeks how convenient and efficient it is doing business strictly online with no
physical or verbal contact with customers. Many large corporations
successfully
revolve strictly online. A couple perfect examples are Ebay and Overstock.com. I
just have a couple of questions to make sure you are a good fit.
#1.) How many hours/day can you seriously dedicate to
this position?
#2.) Do you have a computer with Internet access that
you can use during these hours you've set aside for this position?
#3.) Do you have fairly good grammar skills?
#4.) Can you self-motivate?
#5.) What does wealth mean to you?
#6..) What is your why in life?
I am looking for someone who can do customer response a
few hours a day. It is very tedious work, so little or no distraction is a plus!
You will NOT be micromanaged, so you will have to self-motivate to get the job
done. You will be paid upon completion of each job. There's plenty of work to
keep you busy for whatever your schedule may be. The amount of money you make
will be determined by how much time and effort you put into it. Many of my new
team members start out making OVER $2,500/month and grow from there. It ALL
depends on your schedule and dedication. Please think this over and answer these
questions truthfully. Once completed, send them back to me so I may evaluate
your answers, and make a proper decision. If chosen for this position, I will
contact you and you may begin working ASAP. Hopefully, you can be a new team
member and on your way to earning a terrific income! Thanks and have a great
day!
Kind Regards,
Mike Moshay
/pk
Response from the victim:
On 12/18/08, George Z
wrote:
Dear Mike,
Thank you for your interest in my resume. Would you be
so kind as to provide more information about your company and the requirements of this position
for further research before we begin?
Thank you,
G. Zarem
Second email from the scammer:
Hello George,
We can understand your hesitation with the number of
scams that are going on today. However we are a legitimate work from home
position. We are not an MLM. No surveys, just simple customer service and simple
processing of new hires through H.R. We represent some of the best work from
home companies in the world. We will provide you with the website and additional
product information of the specific company you will be working for, along with
your job offer, should you be the job applicant we feel is best suited for these
positions. You will be given a contract to sign, upon completion of your 90 day
probationary period. The training fee is requested to allow us to weed out those
applicants that are serious about making a small investment into their future.
If this opportunity is something that you seriously want to pursue and put in
the time and effort necessary to make it work, then we are willing to have your
payment deferred and deducted out of your
inital paycheck. In order to do this
we do impose an additional one time only $15 fee on top of the $39 one time only
charge as this does create additonal work for our accountant. We also ask that
you pay at least $10 of the background check/training fee to the paypal account
up front and we will defer the rest.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact
Winona at 513-418-8419, or Ninette at 616-828-6192, and they'll be happy to
answer any questions you might have. You will likely reach their voicemail, so
please speak clearly and leave her your name and telephone and they will be
happy to answer your questions.
Have a great day,
Ninette Hinkle
HR Manager/Red Team Manager
Other Jobs Scams
There are a variety of sleazy scams that look, at first glance, like
legitimate job offers. Before you write back to them, pause a moment and read about the scams below!
Some of the more common job scams are
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