This job scam just got in through my spam filters and I was surprised to find it's a near clone of the Bogo International Company scam from 6 weeks ago. In fact, the only things they changed were the company name, the job title (from "Shipment Inspector" to "Check-Ship Inspector"), and Personnel Manager Mileva's reply address.

Here's the letter, then I'll debunk it below.

From: Merle Hooper <walters@esplanade.com>
Subject: Job position!

COMPANY: BottonGost International Company
JOB TITLE: Check-Ship Inspector
TYPE OF WORK: Tele-commute (availability of work from your residence)
EMPLOYEE TYPE: Full-Time/Part-Time
INDUSTRY: E-Commerce
JOB TYPE: Sales
EFFECTIVE DATE: ASAP
REQUIRED EDUCATION: Not specified
REQUIRED EXPERIENCE: At least 1 year
REQUIRED TRAVEL: Not specified
REQUIRED RELOCATION: Not specified
SALARY: Negotiable, depends of your personal skills (more detailed in further communication)
SCHEDULE: Flexible
TRAVEL: Unnecessary

CONTACT: Personnel Manager Mileva
EMAIL: mileva@bottongost.cn

We are a supplier to Clients and Sellers, meaning that we scour the internet for close-outs that can be bought low and sold high. Our contacts include manufacturers with close out items and distributor overstock. The Sellers purchase products using our service then sell them for a sizeable profit.

JOB DESCRIPTION

What we need are people to act as Check-Ship Inspectors. You would receive the merchandise, check for quality of packing and make sure the product is in good condition. Then you would reseal the package and then send to the client or seller.

- No overheads
- No hidden fees, upfront payments or Investments
- Free start for employees

Qualifications/Education:
- High School diploma or equivalent
- Relative experience, Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (1 or more years)
- Basic Math, English language skills
- Geographical locations
- Additional languages may be preferred
- Basic computer skills

Ability to operate and maintain equipment including handhelds, computers. Develop, maintain and monitor relationships with store level accounts. Effective oral and written communications, problem-solving skills to reflect level of responsibilities. Able to maintain sensitive and confidential information.

Requirements:
- Basic knowledge of computer and internet
- Sending and Receiving emails
- Fax machine or scanner and printer
- Contact phone (preferably Mobile)

Feel free to email back ONLY at: mileva@bottongost.cn (manager Mileva) for further communication and more details.

The first giveaway on this for me was Personnel Manager Mileva, because that was part of a scam spam going around in March. But if you're not familiar with Bogo International Company (or the new BottonGost International Company), how can you tell it's a scam spam?

SIGN 1 OF A SCAM SPAM - Addresses Don't Add Up: Most scam spams come from an address totally unrelated to the company they're claiming to represent. Esplanade.com is a shopping center in Singapore, and according to the routing information in the mail headers (which most mail clients hide unless you look at the full headers), the mail was sent through a server in Thailand.

Then they ask you to reply to a different address. In most cases it's a gmail.com address, but these folks have got a Chinese .cn domain and they're having you mail them there. I would seriously advise against trying to check out their web site. Odds are it could be hosting malicious code.

SIGN 2 OF A SCAM SPAM - A Hinky Whois: If you're on a Windows machine, you can do a whois query at a registrar's web site like GoDaddy. If you're running Mac OS X, Linux, or one of the BSDs, you can just pull up a terminal window and type "whois", then a space, then the domain name.

In this instance, we find that the domain for bottongost.cn was registered... today. You'll often find that if these scam spammers have a domain or web site of their own, it was registered within the space of a few days to a few weeks ago. This alone isn't a sure sign of a scam. There are companies starting new sites all the time. But if they're approaching you with a job offer, unsolicited, you really should be on your guard when you see something like this.

SIGN 3 OF A SCAM SPAM - Are You Sending Something Abroad?: Most of these scams have one thing in common. The company is foreign and it needs U.S. reps to receive something for them, process it, and send it out of the country. This might be checks or wire transfers they want you to turn into cash, sending the funds (minus a commission) to them via Western Union. Alternatively, it might be a package which they want you to receive and then forward to them.

In the case of the checks and wire transfers, they're usually forged. They pass first inspection at the bank, you get the money, you send it via Western Union, then the forgery is caught, and the bank comes after you because you're the one who withdrew the money. Good luck getting your "employer" to send the money back.

In the case of packages, they approach online merchants, Ebay sellers, etc., none of whom will ship to Eastern Europe or many parts of Asia and Africa anymore because they can't trust buyers from those parts of the world. So your new "employer" pretends to be... you. They go and buy the items, pay with a bogus check or a hacked PayPal account, have the package shipped to you, you send it on. When the seller they ripped off goes to the cops about the fraud, they give the cops your name and address.

In this economy, it's easy to grasp at straws, to want to believe these things are true, but you just can't ignore the warning signs. I'm sorry if you got your hopes up. Best of luck to you all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Job Hunting, Techno Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.