« Home | Almost Got Scammed » | MAS' Grads System » | Equal Opportunity? » | Life Back in Melbourne » | About Time... » 

Wednesday, March 15, 2006 

Online Job Scammers

Following up to my previous post, here's more information regarding the online job scammers who have, for some time now, been enticing job seekers into becoming a part of their elaborate international online auction scam.

Dubbed postal forwarding or reshipping fraud, the scam involves Eastern European-based con artists recruiting unsuspecting job seekers in the US, UK, and now Australia to act as the middle men in their online auction transactions.

The con artists would impersonate the recruit to fraudulently purchase auction items (including electronics, jewellery, and collectibles) using stolen credit cards, and have the items shipped to the recruit's address. The recruit would then be instructed to repack the items and ship them to an address in Eastern Europe, with the promise of a 10-15% cut of the resale price.

Auction bidders are also targetted. The con artists impersonate the recruit and place auction items for sale. They then tell the winners to wire funds to the recruit's bank account, avoiding any suspicions aroused by the mention of overseas wire transfers, without ever shipping the items to the winners. The recruit, of course, is then instructed to wire the funds to a Western Union office in Eastern Europe. Since no ID is required to pick up the money, it leaves the con artists pretty much untraceable.

The recruits meanwhile eventually start receiving calls from angry auction winners and are left to deal with the embarassment and possible legal action relating to theft, falsifying government documents (in declaring the packages as gifts on Customs forms), and income tax evasion.

While it seems that such online scams are easy to detect, thousands of job seekers are still caught up in the con annually, unwittingly helping the con artists steal up to an estimated US$500 million in merchandise thus far. Much of this is down to the fact that the job ads posted by these companies seem innocuous enough, while most of the companies pose as ordinary courier service firms and even have their own legitimate-looking websites like the one below (formerly located at Postforward.org) to avoid suspicion.

Source: MSNBC
More info here, here, and here.

Great post. ӏ used to be checking continuouѕly this
blog and I am imρreѕsed! Extгеmely useful іnfo sресially the гemaining
рhаѕe :) І takе caгe of such informаtіοn a lot.
Ι wаs looking for this particular іnfo for а very long time.
Thanκ you аnd goοd luck.

Feel free to surf to my web-site ... image reputation management

Post a Comment