Just got the following job scam e-mail slipping through my spam filters. I'll post the mail, then we can look at the scam red flags.

From: Kitty Gay <rurcffah4668@hotmail.com>
Subject: W0RK AT HOME POSITION IN L0GISTIC COMPANY | ID 3673

Logistic company provides delivery services for in different fields of on-line businesses such as: on-line stores, auction sellers etc. We work with more than 35 Sales ?orporationsworldwide. Several american Internet stores find our company the most attractive and reliable to work with as we are always trying to do our best to satisfy our clients.
Lately there was an increase in this sphere of commerce and now we are looking for new staff for the Package Manager position.

We are happy to offer you this career opportunity. It is a remote job and you will be able to get gainings while operating at home.

Position: Package Manager
Job-Type: part-time

For more information please contact our HR department: emp.employeehiring.emp146@gmail.com

Kind Regards
Private company

Okay, the first red flag is the e-mail addresses. When they send you a mail from one free mail service (here it's Hotmail) and ask you to reply to another free mail service (here it's gmail), you should be on your guard. How are they a legitimate company, but they send e-mail from an anonymous Hotmail address and ask you to reply to an anonymous Gmail address? This is VERY common in job scam e-mails, and even if they had some legitimate reason for doing it, the fact that job scammers almost always do it should make you wary.

Second, what company is this? They don't tell you the name? What reason do they have to be secretive when the position isn't sensitive? And why are they spelling logistic with a zero instead of an O in the subject? All of these should make you wary.

Third, two of the most common job scams are check cashing (they send you forged checks to cash and then wire the money out of the country) and package re-shipping. With package re-shipping, they buy stuff off Ebay and other such sites using forged checks, forged money orders, and hacked Paypal accounts. Since most of the sellers won't even accept an order from Eastern Europe, China, or Africa, they get you on the hook for a "job", pretend to be you when buying the merchandise, have it shipped to you, then have you ship it out of the country. When the Paypal payment is reversed or the check bounces, the seller calls the cops and the cops come to your house looking for the merchandise.

The job title of "package manager" makes it sound too much like this is probably a package re-shipping scam. And when you combine it with all the other signs, this letter screams "stay far far away!"

I know it's tough out there. Trust me. I've been underemployed for almost a year. But don't let yourself get caught up in a scam out of desperation. It's easy to want to believe these are real, but they're not, and these people will screw you over exactly because you're vulnerable and desperate. That's why we call them criminal scum.

Best of luck to you all and God bless.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Job Hunting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.