Talk about a tempting job offer! You work at home, just receiving some bills and sending off payments for a furniture-sales company, and you make more than $200 per transaction.
“As the work hours are flexible and you can decide when you wanna (sic) work, you are free to do home chores, attend to the kids, get another home-based job and others,” an e-mail sender said. A Vancouver resident received the message and forwarded it to the Vancouver Police Department.
The originator of the e-mail says he owns a website that sells hand-made furniture brands worldwide.
He says he’s looking for a “work-at-home company financial assistant” who will receive bills and payments from customers.
“There are times when they pay in check and you have to get the check cashed at your bank,” the sender says. “After this, you send the same payment to our suppliers or vendors, subtracting your commission of 8 percent from the same amount.”
That part doesn’t sound right, said Kim Kapp, spokeswoman for the Vancouver Police Department. She asked The Columbian to warn readers that “they should never give out their personal checking account information to anyone or utilize their personal accounts on behalf of a business they are unfamiliar with.”
Bingo, says http://www.scambusters.org, a free e-mail blog website that’s respected by police.
Early this month, scambusters warned of several “tricky new job scams,” including the “payment processing scam.”
Describing a scam that fits the e-mail the Vancouver resident received to a T, scambusters says:
“The job goes smoothly for weeks or months — until the police show up at your door because your fake employer’s customers have never received their orders. By using you to forward payments, the thief was able to supply a domestic address for payments, which increases buyers’ trust.”
Scambusters adds: “You could be sued or even prosecuted. Prosecution is unlikely, assuming the police believe you were an innocent pawn in the deception, but a civil lawsuit against you requires only that you failed to use ‘reasonable care.’”
So. Just another crook who took his customers’ money, promising to send them something, but left out that second part. It’s been done in this area by crooks who offered purebred dogs and puppies for sale.
Here are four more job scams from scambusters’ recent postings:
• STIMULUS PLAN SCAM: You get an official-looking e-mail or letter, or end up on a scammer’s “phony government website” that says you can get a federal economic stimulus grant because you lost your job.
“If you fill out the phony stimulus application, you will become a victim of identity theft. If you provide an account routing number, your bank account may be emptied.”
• GOVERNMENT JOB SCAM: You’re informed that state or federal jobs are available in your area, and asked to call a number to hear job listings and request an application.
“The message drones on endlessly when you call.”
Later, you look at your phone bill and see you were billed about $5 per minute. If the area code was 809, 876 or 284, you called someone in the Caribbean, where scammers impose high call fees.
“There are many legitimate phone numbers and employers in the Caribbean,” says scambusters, “but there’s no legitimate reason that you would be asked to call the Caribbean to find out about a U.S. government job.”
You’ve likely heard of this one in the context of an urban legend.
Snopes.com, the “Rumor has it” site, says the scheme is uncommon in the U.S. and “one of the most relentlessly overpublicized instances of online scarelore,” with the charges involved “greatly exaggerated.”
AT&T Smart Controls at http://att.net warns of the 809 area code scam and says people should “return calls to familiar numbers only.” AT&T says it “will work with you and the carrier to help remove fraudulent charges from the phone bill.”
• BACKGROUND CHECK SCAM: Fraudulent job scammers have interviewed you over the phone, and it sounds like you may get a great job. Now they’re moving in for the kill. They want to do a “routine background check” and want your Social Security number and permission to check your credit history.
Before giving up your personal and financial information, you need to check the company out. You need to look up the company’s true number yourself, independently, not using contacts the scammers give. You call the company’s switchboard and ask to speak with their human resources office to verify the job offer.
• TRAVEL COST SCAM: In this diabolical switcheroo, scammers say they like your résumé, which they found online, and want you fly in for a personal interview.
The scammers say they won’t pay your airfare, but they offer you a discounted plane ticket.
Then they ask for your credit card number or ask you to wire them the cash for the ticket.
You can guess the rest.
• BBB WARNINGS: The Better Business Bureau also has issued warnings about “work-at-home schemes.”
People pay big bucks to learn about doing medical billing at home, the BBB says, but few will find jobs.
Other at-home jobs to beware: envelope stuffing, online rebate processing and multi-level marketing of products, which requires you to find new recruits who buy product samples. It ends up being a pyramid scheme where some participants don’t make any money, says the BBB.
Another ploy is craft assembly jobs, assembling things like toys and dolls, the BBB warns. You pay for a start-up kit and do the assembly work, but the scammers refuse to pay you and won’t return what you paid for the start-up kit.
