Got this scam e-mail slipping through my spam filters today. It's disguised to look like it came from/through CareerBuilder, but that's forged. I'll post the text and then we'll examine the warning signs afterward.
Dear Applicant,We have an exciting opportunity with our company for: Accounts Payable Manager/Payments Processor in your area with no need of relocation
New concept: Commissions without sales!!
Job SnapshotCompensation: $85,000 - $95,000 per year
Employee Type: Full-Time Employee
Manages Others: YesJob Type:
Accounting - Finance
Admin - Clerical
Customer Service
Desired Education Level: High School
Experience: N/A
Required Travel: NO
Relocation: NORequirements
Must be US citizen, resident or green card holder
Must have Microsoft Office Intermediate experience, checking emails 3 times/day.If you are interested please reply back to be contacted by our Human Resources Department.
Sylvia Riddle
General Manager
Obviously, the first warning sign is who is going to offer you a $95,000 a year job that requires no experience and just a high school diploma? As the old saying goes, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.
Now, normally, I warn to watch out for them asking you to reply to a free e-mail service like Hotmail.com or Gmail.com. They were smart and ask you to reply to interestedinthejob.com, which looks like it might be legit. BUZZ! It's part of a free e-mail service owned by America Online, called Tunome, where you can get a free e-mail address at one of over 200 domains. With Gmail or Hotmail, it's easy to spot that they're using a free mail service. With this AOL service, you need to probe deeper.
Another major sign is the "financial manager" or "accounts payable manager" job title. This is an old scam. Basically, they say they need your help processing payments from their clients in the United States. They then have local accomplices who send you forged checks (see this WA Attorney General's blog post on one such accomplice they sent to jail last year). You cash the checks, take a commission, and wire the rest off via Western Union to Africa or Eastern Europe. A week or two later, the bank catches the fraud and they and the cops would like to talk to you about where their money is.
Last, if you know how to view the full headers of an e-mail message (with the Thunderbird mail reader, I use the "View Message Source" option), you'll see that Careerbuilder didn't really send the mail on behalf of this "employer". Real e-mails from Careerbuilder originate from Careerbuilder servers. This e-mail originated from Earthlink's SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) server.
A lot of these scammers are really lazy and make it fairly easy to spot their scams. Others, like these, put in a little extra effort to make their scams look more legitimate. But if you know what to look for, even these more elaborate fakes still show their cracks.
Good luck to you all.
Also Worth Noting: I got another scam today for the same sort of scam from an "Andrew Hakes" of "IQ Business". Instead of giving me an e-mail address to reply to, he gave me a link to click on to apply at their site.
Now, when they give you a site, the first check to do is a "whois" search on their domain name ("yahoo.com" is Yahoo's domain name). This will give you the domain record. Look at the "created-on" date to see when the domain was registered. Often you'll find the domain is just a few days or a few weeks old, which likely means it was registered specifically for the scam. Often you'll also find out it's pointed to servers in Russia, China, or Africa.
NEVER EVER CLICK THE LINK. Sometimes the spammer/scammer might use a link-cloaker or link-shortener like snipurl.com or tinyurl.com to disguise where the link really goes. Don't click the link to go there to find out the real domain. Most of these domain shortening services have a function that lets you "preview" the link and see where it goes. You can get the domain name from their sites without having to visit the spammer's site.
Why shouldn't you visit the spammer's site? First, the visits are logged, so the spammer/scammer both has your IP address and confirmation that people are clicking the link (which encourages more spamming). Second, the spammer is probably running a bunch of exploit scripts at the site, meaning that if your browser has any unpatched or unprotected weaknesses, you could be infected with any number of viruses and trojans.
I didn't write up the e-mail in its own post because snipurl.com had already deactivated the link the spammer was using. But I felt it was worth posting this warning.
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I responded to this job posting and recieved the contract. Looked legit, so I submitted it. Then I searched and found this posting. I sent an e-mail back chalenging them, have not heard back from them yet.
I got this same job scam; ironically AOL flagged it as SPAM and put it in my SPAM folder. Thanks for the heads up; I am unemployed so at first glance it looked to good to be true so I started to investigate. When I got over a million hits on interestedinthejob.com; that was the first clue..
I too was solicited via email stating that they had reviewed my resume on Careerbuilder. I emailed "them" back and forth for 3 days, also completing the application. However, it seemed to good to be true, so I started searching online. I found the company they were posing as, in London...however, I could not ever get a phone number. Then I started searching "scams" and found this post. Amazing that the letter above mirrors almost exactly the one I got. I am posting it here in hopes that someone else won't get scammed!...
I appreciate finding this online before I ended up cashing checks to them and losing my azz!
*****************************************************************************
afidevelopment@interestedinthejob.com THIS IS THE EMAIL ACCOUNT...LOOK FAMILIAR?????
My name is Diana Horn, and I am the HR Manager of AFI Development International. I would like to say a few words about our company:
COMPANY DETAILS
Our company was founded in 2005 in United Kingdom, AFI Development International is one of the largest equipment selling companies to millions of our customers - businesses, hospitals, groups and individuals and processing payments. The AFI Development International logo is a trusted symbol of dependability. Naturally, you have great expectations regarding your career and that means you will need plenty of room - to grow, to explore your potential and to realize your goals. HR Manager of AFI Development International needs a responsible, honest, self motivated and reliable individual to work for the company as our Representative in USA. This is in view of us not having an office presently in the USA. You don't need to have an office and this certainly will not disturb any form of work you have going at the moment.
JOB DESCRIPTION, TERMS AND CONDITIONS
You don’t have to pay any fees to get this job. Nobody will ask for your bank account, credit card or social security number.
Because of the today’s situation on the financial market, there is a vacancy to be filled in our company; the job opening is that of a Representative within the US. This opening will help our company to reduce taxes that we are obliged to pay to the government each month. And we offer you one of the highest salaries on the market today and the minimal expenditures of time.
Presently with the amount of orders we have we cannot put them on hold for fear of losing our customers, secondly we cannot cash these payments from the US soon enough, as international checks take about 28 working days for cash to be made available here in London UK. We lose very much money each month because we have money transfer delays. Our clients could pay us where we want by sending checks to an US Address. What we need you to do is to provide us an address where we can receive our customer checks. We need someone who can receive the money through this method of payment. Regarding the check process all you have to do is to receive the checks our customers will send to your address, take them to your bank, cash them and send the remainder amount to us. All fees for transferring money will be supported from our share. Bonuses will apply for cashing checks in 24 hours. You will always take your percentage upfront.
You are not involved in any sales.
We make direct contact for sales of products. Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer (usually through USPS).The customer receives and check the products, after this has been done the customer has to pay for the products. We accept all forms of payment but most of our customers pay using Bank Checks and so in order to solve this problem and not lose any of our customers we have decided to open this new job position. This job is legal according to the U.S. legislation as it is today.
Local money transfers take barely a few hours, so it will give us a possibility to get customer's payment almost immediately.
PAYMENT AND SALARY:
For example you've got 3000.00 USD, you deduct your commission: 300.00 USD and then send to us the balance: 2700.00 USD. In the first month you will have 15-20 transactions after checking your background records, 3,000.00-6,000.00 USD so you may calculate your income. For example 20 transactions each around 3000.00 USD gives you a total income of 6,000.00 USD per month and after establishing a close co-operation with us you'll be able to operate with larger orders and you'll be able to earn more. You will also deduct fees that are related to this job (gasoline, western union fees, bank commissions etc) from our balance, not from your commissions. The checks will vary from: $500.00 to $3,000.00. We will also send you a 1099 Form for tax deduction on your part.
Our payments will be issued out in your name and you can have them cashed in your existing bank account, we don’t accept newly created bank accounts, because it slows the cashing process. Deduct your percentage and forward the balance to the company attorney manager via western union money transfer, the name will be given to you later after cashing a payment. This job takes only 3-7 hours per week. You'll have a lot of free time doing another job; you'll get good income and a regular job. This job is very challenging and you should understand it. We are looking only for the worker who satisfies our requirements and will be an earnest assistant.
WORKING HOURS
This depends of how many checks you will receive but it won't take more than 2 hours to deposit the check and send an email as soon as the check arrives to you. Also as soon as checks arrive we will send you further instructions and all details in order to complete the process with Western Union.
Unfortunately we cannot setup any interviews now as we do not have any representatives in US. We will be able to come and meet within the next few months when the new offices will be opened in you area!
Please let me know if you are still interested and I will email you the contract. Also include phone numbers and email address where you can be reached. Within 24 hours after we will receive this information we will forward you a copy of the contract you have to fill in, sign and email back to us.
IMPORTANT:
WE PREFER THAT THE CONTRACT TO BE SENT BACK WITHIN 24 HOURS AFTER YOU WILL RECEIVE IT. WE CANNOT LOSE TIME AND WE WON'T FORWARD YOUR DETAILS TO OUR CUSTOMERS UNTIL WE WILL HAVE THE SIGNED CONTRACT EMAILED BACK!
Diana Horn
AFI Development International
3 More London Riverside, London, SE1
United Kingdom
FAX 011-44-258-654-3526
FAX 011-44-110-256-0778
**********************************************************************************
THE CONTRACT-IT DOES LOOK REAL!.....................
I could not get a phone # to call and verify. I did find this company online, and it looks legit, however I think who ever is scamming is using it as a cover!....
Diana Horn
AFI Development International
3 More London Riverside, London, SE1
United Kingdom
FAX 011-44-258-654-3526
FAX 011-44-110-256-0778
CONTRACT
Written today, August 31, 2009
I. CONTRACT PARTIES
1.1. “AFI DEVELOPMENT INTERNATIONAL” with headquarters located in 3 More London Riverside, London, SE1 , represented by Administrative Director, Diana Horn in quality of beneficiary (here after referred to as “Beneficiary”), and
Email address:
Full name:
Address:
City, State:
Zip code:
Phone number:
in quality of representative (here after referred to as “Representative”) have agreed to sign this representative contract.
Now, therefore, in consideration of the execution of the Contract, and the undertakings of the Parties as here in after set forth, it is agreed as follows:
II. CONTRACT OBJECTIVES
2.1. The purpose of this contract is carrying out the financial operations for and in the name of the Beneficiary according to it’s instructions by the Representative:
a) The Representative will present itself at the location indicated by the Beneficiary, namely a bank where the Representative has an existing bank account and use this account to cash the checks;
b) Cashing the funds on the checks for the Beneficiary;
c) Sending the funds to the Beneficiary upon receiving instructions.
III. DURATION OF CONTRACT
3.1. This contract is made for a period of 1 (one) year, starting from August 31, 2009 to August 31, 2010.
3.2. The duration of the contract stated in paragraph 3.1. from the present contract can be extended if both parties wish it and it will be stipulated in an additional annex.
3.3. The Representative can terminate the contract and for that purpose the Representative will give a two-week notice to the Beneficiary. During these two weeks the Representative will still have to finish its duties until there are no more checks to clear or funds to send to the Beneficiary. The Beneficiary will stop sending checks to the Representative when the termination of contract notification is received.
IV. FINANCIAL STIPULATIONS
4.1. Every month bonuses and benefits will apply to your salary.
1. Within one month after receiving the first check you will get an extra $1,000 if you will manage to cash checks in a timely manner, also this bonus includes internet bill, phone bill, gas/bus tickets. We will support all bills you have to pay for your internet and cell phone. PLEASE NOTE: This bonus will apply after one month starting the day you will receive the first check.
2. After two months of working with us, a secondary bonus will apply. You will get 15% from all our sales. If everything works as we will expect and it will, you will be able to do up to $1200 - $1300 per week + the bonus of $1,000 every month.
3. Bonuses regarding cashing checks are as follow:
a) Cash the check same day and you will receive a bonus of $150 for each check cashed.
b) Cash the check within 24 hours and you will receive a bonus of $100.
c) Cash the check within 48 hours and you will receive a bonus of $50
4.2. The salary will be paid to the Representative by cashier check.
4.3. The Beneficiary will cover financially any and all losses that the Representative might suffer due to any problems regarding the checks and money orders. These losses include all the fees and up to the full amounts on the checks/money orders that the bank might impose the Representative to pay.
V. PARTIES OBLIGATIONS
5.1. The Representative agrees:
a) To follow and execute exactly the obligations towards the Beneficiary which he/she assumed in the virtue of the present representative contract;
b) To promptly send the payment to our supplier indicated by the Company;
c) To keep the relationship and transactions with the Company private from any third party;
5.2. The Beneficiary of these services agrees:
a) Not to force the Representative to make transactions or transfers that are illegal or in contradiction with the present contract;
b) To assume all responsibility financially that will result from executing the present contract;
c) To carry out all its obligations towards the Representative following the terms and conditions stipulated in the present representative contract.
d) To issue a 1099 form for tax purposes and send it to the Representative after first transaction.
VI. WARRANTIES
6.1. The Representative guarantees for the execution of its duties in the present representative contract.
6.2. The Beneficiary guarantees for the Representative its full support and financial aid in executing the objectives of the present representative contract.
VII. LEGAL CLAUSE
7.1. The Employee will be subject to penalties due to delays or waiting time beyond the two business days passed since receiving the check from our customer.
VIII. CONTRACT TERMINATION
8.1. The present representative contract will be terminated, without the need for a Court of Law to intervene in case one of the parties:
8.1.1. Does not execute one of the essential obligations as stated in the present contract;
8.1.2. Cessions its rights and obligations stated in the present contract without the approval of the other party;
8.1.3. Breaks one of its obligations, after it has been warned, through a written notification by the other party that a new violation will result in the termination of the present contract.
8.2. The party that will invoke termination of the obligations stated in the present contract will notify the other party with at least 14 days in advance before the date that the interruption will take effect.
8.3. Cancellation of the present contract will not have any effect on the obligations falling due between the contract parties.
8.4. The stipulations of the present contract do not eliminate the responsibility from the guilty party that caused for the contract to be void.
IX. EXTREME SITUATIONS
9.1. Neither of the parties will be held responsible for not being able to carry out accordingly totally or partially any of its own obligations if an extreme force or situation (as defined by law) has caused it.
9.2. The party that invokes an extreme situation is obligated to notify the other party as soon as possible of its happening and to take all the necessary measures to limit its consequences.
9.3. If 15 days pass from the beginning of the event and the event does not end, the parties have the right to notify each other about the full termination of the present contract without any of them to ask for damages.
9.4. The Representative will give a two-week notice to the Beneficiary if he/she has to go away from its location or cannot perform its duties due to illness. In either case the Representative will not suffer any penalties from the Beneficiary.
X. FINAL STIPULATIONS
10.1. The modification of the present contract is possible only through additional annexes agreed and signed by both parties.
10.2. The present contract along with its annexes which are constitutive part of its contents represents the will of both parties and eliminates any other verbal agreement between them, before or after its signing.
10.3. The present contract was in two copies, one for each party today August 31, 2009.
BENEFICIARY REPRESENTATIVE
AFI DEVELOPMENT INTERNATIONAL
Administrative Director
Diana Horn
*****************************************************************************
Hope this helps!!
I'm glad that I have started googling the "Company" to see if they are legit. Your blog came on top. I couldn't find the company so I did the next best thing..."interestedinthejob.com. Thankfully, there are others who have common sense. I too got the same email as though Careerbuilder sent it. The only difference is the signature: Thank you,
Support department
Third Hire International
Deanna Crenshaw
Leicester Place, London, WC2H
United Kingdom
FAX 011-44-456-800-2134
FAX 011-44-812-980-0990
Two Fax numbers? Suspicious! I think so.
Isn't there a way to forward these to a government office?
http://www.scammersanonymous.gov or something to this effect.
Anyway, I will put them off.
Thanks again.
I received the same email, however, the name changed to Hikma Pharmaceuticals Ltd International and was from the HR Manager Daniele Woods. IT was the exact wording as KCnurse2003 posted above.
I received an email they saw my resume on Careerbuilder. I asked them for additional information and to contact me by phone and instead they send me this long email for me to complete an application. Of course, I searched this company and found the real Hikma Pharmaceuticals also owns United States based West-Ward out of Pennsylvania - so why would they need someone to cash checks for them. Then I found these postings and confirmed this is a scam.
I hope that no one gets caught up in this scam. Always remember, if it sounds to good to be true, it usually is.
Thank you so much for posting this I to received the email from Daniele Woods from Hikma Pharmaceuticals LTD International. I responded to the email and here is what I got back:
My name is Daniele Woods, and I am the HR Manager of Hikma PharmaceuticalsLtd. I would like to say a few words about our company COMPANY DETAILS Our Company was founded in 2005 in United Kingdom; Hikma Pharmaceuticals Ltdis one of the largest equipment selling companies to millions of ourcustomers - busineses, hospitals, groups and individuals and processingpayments. The Hikma Pharmaceuticals Ltd logo is a trusted symbol ofdependability. Naturally, you have great expectations regarding your careerand that means you will need plenty of room - to grow, to explore yourpotential and to realize your goals. HR Manager of Hikma Pharmaceuticals LtdInternational needs a responsible, honest, self motivated and reliableindividual to work for the company as our Representative in USA. This is inview of us not having an office presently in the USA. You don't need to havean office and this certainly will not disturb any form of work you havegoing at the moment. JOB DESCRIPTION, TERMS AND CONDITIONS You don't have to pay any fees to get this job. Nobody will ask for yourbank account, credit card or social security number. Because of the today's situation on the financial market, there is a vacancyto be filled in our company; the job opening is that of a Representativewithin the US. This opening will help our company to reduce taxes that weare obliged to pay to the government each month. And we offer you one of thehighest salaries on the market today and the minimal expenditures of time. Presently with the amount of orders we have we cannot put them on hold forfear of losing our customers, secondly we cannot cash these payments fromthe US soon enough, as international checks take about 28 working days forcash to be made available here in London UK. We lose very much money eachmonth because we have money transfer delays. Our clients could pay us wherewe want by sending checks to an US Address. What we need you to do is toprovide us an address where we can receive our customer checks. We needsomeone who can receive the money through this method of payment. Regardingthe check process all you have to do is to receive the checks our customerswill send to your address, take them to your bank, cash them and send theremainder amount to us. All fees for transferring money will be supportedfrom our share. Bonuses will apply for cashing checks in 24 hours. You willalways take your percentage upfront. You are not involved in any sales. We make direct contact for sales of products. Once orders are received andsorted we deliver the product to a customer (usually through USPS). Thecustomer receives and check the products, after this has been done thecustomer has to pay for the products. We accept all forms of payment butmost of our customers pay using Bank Checks and so in order to solve thisproblem and not lose any of our customers we have decided to open this newjob position. This job is legal according to the U.S. legislation as it istoday. Local money transfers take barely a few hours, so it will give us apossibility to get customer's payment almost immediately. PAYMENT AND SALARY: For example you've got 3000.00 USD, you deduct your commission: 300.00 USDand then send to us the balance: 2700.00 USD. In the first month you willhave 15-20 transactions after checking your background records,3,000.00-6,000.00 USD so you may calculate your income. For example 20transactions each around 3000.00 USD gives you a total income of 6,000.00USD per month and after establishing a close co-operation with us you'll beable to operate with larger orders and you'll be able to earn more. You willalso deduct fees that are related to this job (gasoline, western union fees,bank commissions etc) from our balance, not from your commissions. Thechecks will vary from: $500.00 to $3,000.00. We will also send you a 1099Form for tax deduction on your part. Our payments will be issued out in yourname and you can have them cashed in your existing bank account, we don'taccept newly created bank accounts, because it slows the cashing process.Deduct your percentage and forward the balance to the company attorneymanager via western union money transfer, the name will be given to youlater after cashing a payment. This job takes only 3-7 hours per week.You'll have a lot of free time doing another job; you'll get good income anda regular job. This job is very challenging and you should understand it. Weare looking only for the worker who satisfiesour requirements and will be an earnest assistant. WORKING HOURS This depends of how many checks you will receive but it won't take more than2 hours to deposit the check and send an email as soon as the check arrivesto you. Also as soon as checks arrive we will send you further instructionsand all details in order to complete the process with Western Union. Unfortunately we cannot setup any interviews now as we do not have anyrepresentatives in US. We will be able to come and meet within the next fewmonths when the new offices will be opened in your area! Please let me know if you are still interested andI will email you thecontract. Also include phone numbers and email address where you can bereached. Within 24 hours after we will receive this information we willforward you a copy of the contract you have to fill in, sign and email backto us. IMPORTANT: WE PREFER THAT THE CONTRACT TO BE SENT BACK WITHIN 24 HOURS AFTER YOU WILLRECEIVE IT. WE CANNOT LOSE TIME AND WE WON'T FORWARD YOUR DETAILS TO OURCUSTOMERS UNTIL WE WILL HAVE THE SIGNED CONTRACT EMAILED BACK! Thank you,Support departmentDaniele WoodsHikma Pharmaceuticals Ltd Northumberland AvenueLondon, WC2NUnited KingdomFAX 011-44-565-888-9090FAX 011-44-558-889-9876
Tamika
I recieved the same e-mail from Daniele Woods. She said she got my resume from career builders. It sounded to good to be true so I googled the company was surprised that the company actually exsists and a red flag went up when I realized that at first she said that they do not have an office in the US so there would not be an interview but the company is in New Jersey. Go figure they are in the US LOL so then I googled her name and found these posts. SOOO glad I followed my gut.
I got the exact same e-mail as maurice....same signature and everything. Wow...this is ridiculous. I can't believe that people would stoop so low.
I received the same email by a person named Emma. When I replied to get more information about the company Deanna Crenshaw responded with a long letter similar to the one posted in this website. It sounded very illegal. Then decided to search for information and found this website. Needless to say how it feels about people with such low values and preying on those in need of a legal and decent job.
I just received this email and I responded back and got the above posted letter. Good thing I saw this scam on TV a few months ago where a lady here in Florida did the job for a few weeks before she was caught and found out it was a scam. My memory was vague so I went to google and found this site. Thanks for posting this.
I too received an email from Daniele Woods, and they are very convincing. Being unemployed, its very easy to get caught up in these scams and boy was I close. Good thing I followed continued to listen to that little voice saying.....Don't do it. Good thing I searched and found this site. Thanks for posting.
I received the same email on Careerbuiler from thirdhireinternational.
It sounded to good so I tried to Google the company name. If the company
is so big how come the only thing I could find is this scam report.
Thanks for the posting.
They claimed to have gotten my resume off of careerbuilders also. This is really sad, when I saw this email being unemployed, I wanted this to be real legit. But from the first moment I knew something wasn't right. My first clue was the job title as a Accounts Payable Manager. Well, an accounts payable position pay bills, therefore, why will I be receiving checks instead of writing checks. If they had called it accounts receivable manager, that part wouldn't have suck out. Then I looked up scam. I also notice that the company do have a locations in the United States and the business started before 2005.
Thank God for the internet and people sharing the scams when they almost or have be scammed.
wow!!! i got the whole third hire international....it does look and sound legit. not only did i fill out the contract but i received a check today for $2,680....that's when i stopped and thought "wtf"?!?!? so i called the sheriff's dept.... they came to my house took some information and said that this is an everyday thing and that there is nothing they can do. but the craziest part is how well they cover their butts....everything checks out on whitepages.com....maybe i should call carey sierra and ask her about her check that she sent me...???? i'm so glad i googled this....thanks for looking out for others!!
Everything stated in here is true i got the SAME exact EMAIL and sent off the contract and all. i was waiting on my first check to come in and cant believe i was actually excited about it. im a college student so i thought this was a great way to make some money. THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!!!
Everything here is the same as I recieved. The worst part is that is seemed to come from careerbuilders.com. I sent the contract back signed and was waiting on the checks. Thanks
I also recieved this job offer via email from Carreer Builder. Her name was Danielle Woods from Hikma Phamacueticals. The job contract was sent to me after several emails. I also recieved a check from a Gregory Sanzo and all had to so is cash it and send them a portion western union. After three days in my account the check bounced and put my account in the negative a large amount of money I was able to cancel the transfer and recover the money from Western Union. The so called employer never recieved payment , but I was still out 400.00. When I contacted them they assured me that they were investigating it , but when they realized I cancelled the transfer and they didn't get thier money I never heard from them again. Lesson learn, but I think Carreer Builders needs to screen thier employers more.
Stacy, a lot of these "employers" are not contacting you through CareerBuilder. They're just saying they are to sound more legitimate.
I received this email from "career builder" as well, which was really someone's personal AOL email address disguised. BEWARE job hunters!
I got the email this morning and even without the first cup of morning coffee knew it was too good to be true. I have been out of work for a year and am outraged at the SOBs that feel the need to worsen an already bad situation.
How can we get these #@$%^ ? Please reply with an email address can use to report them. If we can foward the scam email to someone or click on a website and get them jailed, Karma would win.
Thank you.