Work From Home? No Startup Money? OMG!
We all get the occasional scam email from Nigeria where someone's rich relative died leaving no heirs and now they need to move $24M out of the country and you, yes you, have been selected to help!
Some email scams are a bit more sinister and clever, this is one such as that...
I got this in my email today:
TRAN EXPORT COMPANY LIMITED TRAN EXPORT CO.LTD
Effective management and marketing solutionsAttn:
I am {Sir}Terry Lee, Managing Director Tran Export Co., Ltd. We are an Export Company based in Hong Kong. Our company has obtained your contact details from well established recruitment bureau. We thought that you could be attracted to a part time job from home position with our well established company.
AIM: Project coordinator needed.Currently we are expanding and have a limited number of job opportunities available. There is no start-up cost or any other fee to begin working with us. We need you to establish a medium of receiving payment from our customers/clients.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO:
1.Set up an effective Relationship with our customer/client: This office could be your residence; the only requirement is that you should be able to receive mail and telephone calls.
2.Assist general managers to make the financial transactions from the customers/clients: Receive the correspondence from our company or clients to his/her residential address, answer project related e-mails.
ADVANTAGES:
You do not have to go out as you will work as an independent contractor right from your home office.
Your job is absolutely legal.
You can earn 10% of any Amount paid by our client/customers depending on time you will spend for this job.
You do not need any capital to start.
APPLICATION:
Your confidential details will be used only within our company. Every perspective employee, who suits our requirements, will be contacted by our company’s executive to carry out a basic phone or email interview. During the interview you will be able to ask any questions you might have.
To continue with the application process please fill in the form below and send it back to our
email:leefabrics@aim.com
First Name:
Last Name:
Occupation:
Company Name:
Age:
Mailing Address:
State:
City:
Zip code:
Tel.no:
Fax no:
E-mail:
Additional information about yourself :Regards
{Sir}Terry lee,
Managing Director
(TRAN EXPORT CO.LTD)
TRAN EXPORT COMPANY LIMITED
The first thing that caught my eye is the name of the contact "Sir Lee" or, if you say it fast, "surly."
This is known as the "check cashing" scam. you are promised 10% if you will only cash checks and forward the funds on to the main company.
You might notice the contact email is an "aim" address! No real company would ever use an aim, aol, hotmail or any other such email address. They would use something like, "bob@somebigcompany.com" as their email address.
Also, when a company specifically says, "Your job is absolutely legal" that is a sure fire tip that it is not in any way, shape or form legal!
Hello, oh yes, I just received the same email from the same email address and suspected it to be scam. Actually, everyday at yahoo, I receive similar emails. How could they be proliferating.
Amor
I received that email too and filled out the information and sent it. I just received another email telling me that I will receive my first assignment in a few days. After I read the second email from this “Company” I found it suspicious, so I saved the email. I have not received anything in the mail as of yet, but when or if I do– What should I do with it? Do I need to contact my local authorities or what?
I love how they received your information from a reputable recruitment company yet know nothing about you and are willing to trust you with money. That alone doesn’t seem suspicious from anyone?
I responded to a job posting on CL that wanted me to show an apartment to someone, take their check and cash it…
Told them no cause it was too fishy. I would show an apartment to someone that needed it, but cash a check? it would have to be in my name.. haha
Here’s a mail my friend sent me last month about new scam here in Malaysia.
“Any cheque banked in into your account need a few days to transact. Although the amount appears in your account, but it’s still pending for transaction, the person issue the cheque can cancel the
cheque at any time!
A few days ago, one of my friends received a sms with the message:
“You’ve strike 1st prize with a prize money of RMB200,000 cash.” The sms came with a contact no. My friend ignored it since he had heard of too many bogus scams using similar tactics.
After a short while his handphone rang, a Miss Fang asked:
“Sir have you received a sms telling you that you’ve strike 1st prize?”
My friend answered: “Yes, I have”
Miss Fang: “Please let us have your bank account number so that we can deposit the money into your account.”
My friend thought, why not, let’s see what you can do. My friend has a buddy who works in that bank. Hence, he gave her his account number.
Ten minutes later, my friend’s handphone started ringing again.
Miss Fang said: “Sir, we have deposited your prize money into your account, please check and verify.”
My friend checked using his handphone and found that RMB200,000 was really deposited into his account. He was euphoric, just like that and he’s RMB200,000 richer!
30 minutes later, Miss Fang called again.
She was crying: “I’m sorry sir, I made a mistake, I forgot to deduct the tax before I deposited the prize money, 20% of RMB 200,000 equals to RMB40,000. Now the company wants me to reimburse the money.
Can you please return the RMB40,000 tax? I beg you.”
My friend thought for a while and felt pity for the lady. Thinking of the money in his bank account, he went to the bank.
Suddenly he thought of his buddy working in that bank and decided to ask his buddy to double check and confirm for him first.
Upon checking, his buddy found out that the money was deposited using a cheque of a different bank.
Even though the cheque was deposited but the actual amount of money can’t be transfered into his account on the same day. If the other party decided to cancel the cheque, then he’ll not get this RMB200,000.
My friend was shocked. He almost lost RMB40,000.
Before my friend left for home on that day, the cheque was actually cancelled. If not for his buddy, if not for him being a professional, or if he was cared of letting others know of striking the prize then this bogus scam
would be successful. This is a true story, please beware.
Future scams could be even better planned. Please don’t forget to forward to your friends and relatives to warn them from being cheated. “