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Job and Recruiting Scams:
Payment Officer Scam
A T AND T WIRELESS COMMUNICATION, Hong Kong
Mr. Daniel Lee
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:
- What is your company's physical address and phone number?
- Where is your company registered / licensed and what is the
business license number?
- Does your company have a web site? If so, what is the url?
- What is the business email address for the company? (the email address
you supplied for reply is a
free, non-business email account - gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc., not a
commercial email account)
- What is the value to the company of people like me receiving
payments (checks, wires, etc.), cashing them and forwarding the money?
- Why aren’t the payment deposited directly into your own banking
account, as any major bank can receive checks and wires drawn on any legitimate bank
anywhere in the world, in any currency?
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)
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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