Protect Yourself and Report the Latest Frauds, Scams, Spams, Fakes, Identify Theft Hacks and Hoaxes
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Have you received an email from Mr. Daniel Lee of AT&T - "A T AND T WIRELESS COMMUNICATION" in Hong Kong (or ANYWHERE else) offering you a job as a "bookkeeper", "Payment Officer", "local agent" or "local representative" in which you "receive payments", deduct your "Processing fee", deposit the checks and then wire most of the money to an overseas "company"?
It is an AFF / Money transfer Scam. This one is laughably bad. Of course, AT&T, an American company, based in San Antonio, Texas, would NOT recruit "bookkeepers" to work in the USA by email from Hong Kong.
They'll send you counterfeit checks which you are supposed to deposit, take out some percentage (typically, 10%) for your work, and then MoneyGram or Western Union wire the remaining 90%. Notice that although you receive checks, they won't let you forward a check to them, only Western Union or Money Gram. 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. But you can try emailing "Mr. Daniel Lee" back and asking:
Try cutting and pasting those questions and emailing them back to the person offering the "job", "Mr. Daniel Lee" in this case and see how he responds. We'll bet it will be with hostility, like:
"Why are you asking me these questions? We are offering you a legitimate job, but you are treating us like we are scammers! If you are not interested we can find someone else; it is YOUR loss!"
Which, of course, is how a scammer caught with questions that expose his scam, will reply!
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.
Notice the passages in the actual scam email below. They illustrate some of the additional clues that it is a scam, such as the email comes from a free email account (such as Yahoo.com, Hotmail.com, Aim.com, Gmail, cox.net, etc.). Wouldn't you expect a company to have its own website and email address (after all, it only costs about $200/year; every reputable company has its own website these days!) And don't be surprised if the scammers do put the names of real companies, real websites and events in their scams; it doesn't mean anything at all!
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:04:44 -0800 (PST)
From: "AT&T INFO NOTICE" < investor@trades.co.uk >
Reply-To: partner_agent_dlee@yahoo.com.hk
Dear Sir/ Madam
Would you like to work online from home and get paid weekly?
A T AND T WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATION needs a bookkeeper in the United State,Canada europe and some part of Asia,so we want to know if you will like to work online from home and get paid weekly without leaving or affecting your present job? A AND T WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATION run a Telecommunication and Accessories firm here in Hong Kong and we need someone to work for the company as a representative/book keeper in the United State of America, Canada,Europe and some part of Asia
Our company produces various Telecomminications equipments,and Internationally envied of which we have clients we supply weekly in the United states, Canada ,europe and some part of Asia
Our clients make payments for our supplies every week in cheques and via bank transfer, so we need someone in the United State of America and Canada. to work as our representative and assist us in processing the payments from our clients and will be entitled to a renumeration.
All you need to do is to receive payments from our customers in the United States,Canada,europe and some part of asia.deduct 10% commission and send the balance to us.
Do let us know if this is of any interest to you by responding via CEO personal email address:
partner_agent_dlee@yahoo.com.hk
with the following details.
FULL NAMES:
ADDRESS:
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP:
COUNTRY
SEX:
AGE:
CRIMINAL RECORD (YES OR NO)
MARITAL STATUS:
OCCUPATION:
E-MAIL ADDRESS:
TELEPHONE NUMBER:
Warmest Regards,
Mr. Daniel Lee,
International Sales
A T AND T WIRELESS COMMUNICATION. (HONG KONG)
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