I got the following letter just a few minutes ago, but something seemed fishy, so I decided to investigate. First, since some people don't read in very far, let me say that I am not claiming Adecco is involved with phishing. I'm saying that I believe that criminal scammers are using the name of this reputable employment firm to try to lure you in for some evil purpose.

Here's the letter, then we'll go into what's wrong:

From: Adecco Consulting LLC >njanzu@computermail.net<
Subject: Looking for work? We wil help you to build your career!

Looking for a job?

Adecco Consulting, LLC is a search firm for direct-hire, contract, and freelance professionals within various professions (Advertising, Education, Engineering, Finance, Health care, Information technology, Media, Real estate, Transportation).

Registered in Switzerland and managed by a multinational team with expertise in markets spanning the globe, Adecco Consulting Group delivers an unparalleled range of flexible staffing and career resources to both companies and employees.

Through our global network of clients, we can introduce you to a variety of roles in different sectors to help you determine what field is most interesting to you. We can provide you with specialist training and personal development to help prepare you for new experiences. We will offer hottest jobs that match your criteria available in your area!

Please visit our web-site in order to learn about Adecco's current job opportunities and how to apply for them.

http://aduha.eu/Looking_for_Work.php

Sign up to receive e-mail alerts from Adecco Consulting! Receive hottest job offers and/or our latest press releases, financial news and research products directly in our inbox!

We work with an impressive selection of clients, which will improve your chances of finding your new role quickly whether that position is a junior or senior role.

The services we offer our candidates are absolutely free.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what the scam is, but there's a scam brewing. These people are not Adecco. There is an Adecco.eu and it just bounces you to Adecco.com where you can find links to their sites worldwide. This site is not on that list.

Not only that, but if you go to the registrar at eurid.eu and check their whois database, you'll find that the domain was registered on Friday. Not on a Friday, but last Friday, April 10th. It's less than a week old.

The registrant provided a gmail.com contact address, not an Adecco corporate address. And then you see that the sender of the mail uses a computermail.net return address, which is a free webmail service like Gmail or Hotmail.

So this is a site that was registered and put up in a week by people who have no visible association with Adecco other than claiming they're Adecco. I accidentally clicked on the link in the mail, and since I was already there, I figured I'd sign up using a less-used e-mail address and fake name to see what came next. Some of these scams get you to apply and then try to sell you some service or "recommend" something else. It just said thanks for signing up and they'd send a confirmation in 48-72 hours.

So, they're collecting e-mail addresses and those are going to be quite valuable because they're qualified leads for scammers. I'm sure you could get a pretty penny for the e-mail addresses of desperate job hunters who:

• had their spam filter let this through
• read it
• didn't investigate, bought the fakery, and signed up for the job alert

.

On top of that, some people use a "universal password," meaning they use the same password everywhere. That means they may be trying the e-mail address and password combo you gave them at various sites. If you're using that combo elsewhere, you might want to change the password now. No guarantee your account will be compromised, but you did give scam artists the ability to do it, so it's up to you if you want to gamble.

I know how hard it is. I have a command 3-hour seminar to attend at the unemployment office in the morning because I'm on "emergency unemployment" now. It freakin' sucks. But wanting it to be real doesn't make it so, and this is fakery aimed at taking advantage of you when you're at a weak point in your life. Sorry I had to be the one to deliver the news.

Best of luck to you all. God bless.

UPDATE: Just got this again, less than 48-hours later. This one refers people to http://readec.com/Looking_for_Work.php. Readec.com is much older than eurid.eu. It's almost three weeks old instead of being less than a week old. They're using the same nameservers, so there's little doubt these are the same crooks. Taking advantage of people who are already down? They're not just crooks, they're scum.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 2:06 am 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.