Fake Job Offer or Overseas Representative scam
(Sometimes known as "Work from Home" scam)
The Scam
The Fake Job Offer or Overseas Representative scam works by offering the victim a percentage of monies "collected" on behalf of the fraudster and paid into the victim's bank account for onward transmission to the fraudster. The account can be either an existing account or one opened by the victim for the purpose of receiving the funds.
The offer is of a "processing fee" of 2,5, or even 10% or more of the "payments" received and "processed" by the victim acting as an "agent" or "representative" of the fake "employer". The "commission" can be taken immediately by the victim once the funds have "cleared" into their account. The expected transfers are said to be in the order of thousands of pounds and therefore "commissions" of hundreds of pounds can be expected with every "payment". From this point the scams can take slightly different routes. Either the victim is told to remit the balance immediately or they can be told to hold it in their account for a short while (but not too short - see later) to consolidate the payments. The "remits" are always by anonymous telegraphic transfer such as Western Union.
Fraud Mechanism
The fraud mechanism relies on exactly the same basis as the Criminal Overpayment Scam i.e. fake cheques are sent to the victim to be cashed in their own personal bank accounts. The cheques appear to "clear" and the "cleared funds" are forwarded by the victim via untraceable money transfer. The cheques are returned by the issuing bank several weeks after being paid in and the false payments are reversed by the victim"s bank, leaving the victim out-of-pocket to the tune of everything they have transferred to the fraudster (and however much of their "fee" they have spent.)
Who are the victims?
The Fake Job Offer or Overseas Representative scam relies on people looking for a way to supplement their income. They prey on individuals who think that it really is possible to find something which can produce reasonable income with little input or effort. For this reason, victims are commonly Students or people starting out in jobs. Users of Employment or jobs-offered websites are most at risk. The attraction of "working from home" or "in your own time" is obvious to persons with daytime jobs or students.
Many victims are targeted by the scammers after innocently placing their CV at sites like Monster.com, Totaljobs.com and Careerbuilder.com but are most commonly targeted via general Classified Advertising sites offering a "Employment offered " or "jobs offered" section. The scammers often use the titles of genuine companies in their advert and responses to lull the victim into a false sense of security.
The fraudsters prefer sites with minimal, or no screening or moderation of the adverts. Sites which publish direct contact details such as email addresses are preferred since it allows direct contact wthout the possibility of an intermediary warning the user of a possible scam.
Good sites have active initial screening and highly reactive deletion policies. Some sites however, are very slow in response to complaints and often fail to spot repeat attacks even if using the same advert details with a slightly different email address. Such sites are ideal for scammers and are perfect sources of targets.
Other scammers simply use "easy money" spam emails sent to farmed email lists. Some fraudsters actually search other sections of the classified adverts or other "community" sites for email addresses to use in the scam.
An obvious target is anyone advertising their services on an "Employment wanted" or "Job wanted" site.
What does it look like?
Here is an attempt to get in contact from an "online CV" site
"Our offer is in response to your resume on www.xxxxxxx.com. We are searching for representatives who can help us establish a medium of getting to our customers in Europe and America as well as making payments through you as our payment officer. It is upon this note that we seek your assistance to stand as our representative in your country"
Here is an actual advert placed on a loosely-moderated classified site. (All grammar and spellings are as printed.):
"RELIABLE PERSON WANTED FOR OUR DYNAMIC COMPANY!! (UK)"
RELIABLE PERSON WANTED FOR OUR DYNAMIC COMPANY
lxxxxxfabrics@yahoo.co.uk, 0208XXXXXXX
--- "job offer (uk)"
job offer work as reprsentative within unitedkingdom
---
"Part Time Work (UK) "
Rxxxxx Art
Rxxxxx Art is a art work company based in United State. we are currently getting buyers in the United Kingdom and we are looking for a representative that can act as a financier to received payment on our behalf in other to create a more reasonable ways of accepting payment from our customers in the United Kingdom.
Click on the link below to view more details about the job offer position, our requirements and how to send your details to us if you are interested in working for Rxxxxx Art.
Employment Link: http://www.rxxxxxart.org/id53.html
We shall get back to you once your data is received.
Thanks
Rxxxxx Arts
Greg Sachs
rxxxxxart@yahoo.com
Note the poor grammar and spelling, the mention of "United State", the mismatch between the initial email address (a fabric company ) and the response address(an Artwork company). You can find many more examples on a daily basis on this and other poorly-moderated classified websites.
The phone number just rings out and the link is to a page of exactly the same details but offering a "commission" of 10% with a response form asking for bank account details.
(For some obscure reason, well over 80% of recent adverts have named textile companies
as their source!)
Any responder gets the following email or similar:
Hello representative,
Thanks for showing interest in the job offer,Your task as a representative of the company is to coordinate payments from customers and help us with the payment process.You are not involved in any sales. Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer.The customer receives and checks the products. After this has been done the customer has to pay for the products.About 90 percent of our customers prefer to pay through Certified Checks and Money orders drawn from the United States or United kingdom based on the amount involved.
We have decided to open this new job position for solving this problem. Your tasks are;
1. Receive payment from Customers
2. Cash Payment at your Bank or any cashing facilities near you.
3. Deduct 10 % which will be your percentage/pay on Payment processed
4. Forward balance after deduction of percentage/pay to any of the offices you will be contacted to send payment to This is done either through western union money transfer or moneygram.
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 regular job.But this job is very challenging and you should understandit. We are looking only for the worker who satisfies our requirements andwill be an earnest assistant. We are glad to offer this job position toyou. Interested in the position,
kindly email back with the following details of yours:
Name to be written on Checks .............................
Address (This should be a physical address )
City:
State:
Postal Code:
AGE:
GENDER:
MARITAL STATUS:
NATION OF ORIGIN:
Contact Telephone Number .............
Urgent Attention is Imperative.
Regards,
Cheng Wung
Manager
Why is this a fraud?
There are only two possible explanations for this sort of offer. Neither is legal. One explanation is that the requirement is to simply hide the real source of transfers of genuine monies. There is a name for this. It is called MONEY LAUNDERING and is highly illegal.
The other explanation is much more likely. This is that the advert is looking for gullible persons to whom the scammer can send fake cheques for encashment and transmission to the scammer by Western Union or similar instant cash service. There are many,cheaper options for collection of monies owed to an overseas company than having a local 'representative' costing them 10%.
Variations
One reported variation has been the immediate "flashing" of the victim"s accounts with an initial spurious payment as an enticement. This is why most of the invitations are normally accompanied by a request for the victim"s bank details. The explanation is that this is an immediate payment from which the victim can then subtract their 10% to cover "set-up costs". Needless to say, the initial "flash" payment is just as spurious as ones to come and is either a fake cheque paid in elsewhere or a transfer from another victim already hooked.
The real reason for "flashing" the account is to firmly hook the victim since they can now see hundreds or thousands of Pounds in their account with no effort.
Is there an end to it?
The only consolation in this fraud is that there is a time-limit from the first fraudulent cheque encashment to the bank finally catching up. This can be as much as 8 weeks! (See the "Criminal Cashback Scam" section for an explanation of how/why this works.) Even when this happens and the first cheque bounces, fraudsters have been known to give a plausible explanation of why the early cheques failed. (Stupid secretary - cheque was for incorrect amount and had to be canceled, wrong signatory at company etc.) They will then try to send more cheques until the victim FINALLY realizes that there is something wrong.
What are the dangers if you're taken in?
This is most certainly NOT a "victimless" crime. The most obvious consequence of being taken in by it is the loss of ALL of the funds transferred onwards! Even worse, any of the "commissions" that may have been spent are now no longer covered by the fraudulent deposits and are therefore owed to the bank as well as all of the money transferred. There have been cases where the victim has spent all of their commissions so they were left with debts to the total value of all of the cheques they paid in.
Oh - So it's only money!
No - That is not the end of it! The victim has been guilty of paying in dud cheques. Not many people are aware that this is a criminal offence in its own right! The victim has been guilty of receiving monies or goods by means of a false instrument.
Even if the victim can prove that they were never the final recipient of the monies, it is now a Police matter. At the very least they can expect questioning as a possible accomplice which is of course, true even if unwittingly. These frauds are suspected of supporting terrorist activities so victims might expect interest from other Security Services. It has been reported that several victims of the fraud in the United States are currently in prison for this reason. It is not known if British victims have ended up behind bars but certainly many have endured prolonged questioning. Banks nowadays have no time or respect for anyone taken in by one of these "get rich quick" schemes so you can expect no mercy from them.
Do people still get taken in?
Yes. Plain and simple "Yes". There will always be people with a need for (more) money and desperate enough to delude themselves. No matter how many time victims are told "there"s no such thing as free money" or "If it looks too good to be true - then it is!" there will still be someone willing to give it a try. Even when told a particular offer is fraudulent, you can still see cases in the forums of others asking 'why?' and obviously desperate to prove to themselves it is not a fake!
The Users Forums of all of the poorly-moderated classified websites are full of tales of woe blaming the site for allowing the advert. This is true but the website didn"t force them to respond! Here"s an example:
"Guys,
Same thing happened with me , i deposited the cheque and the cheaque turned out fraud, last night i was taking out some cash from the cash machine and my card was retained in the machine, i think there is some problem, please can any one help me what should i do now?"
Another User was visibly concerned that "Someone " was going to come after her because she held two cheques ( for £4000 and £8000) and they were being telephoned constantly asking why she had not sent the money. The calls were becoming aggressive and threatening.
The unbelievable response from another user?
"I'd keep the money mate, but i doubt it will clear."
The real (the Only!) advice is:
- It's not true!
- NEVER cash the cheques. That is a crime on your part!
- If you do get caught up in it, go to the Police before they come for you!
They will particularly appreciate it if you are still being contacted (albeit threats) by the fraudsters directly. This might even allow them to get to know more about the fraudsters.
How to stay safe
Be cautious. Don't believe everything in emails or adverts without trying to check the details. If the offer or response names a UK resident, use the NETCRED ID verification service.
If using a classified advertising website, have a look to see if there is a "feedback" or "scams" forum and checkout the experiences of others. (Beware though that it is not unknown for a guilty website to suppress forum strings that get too accusatory of the moderators inactivity. If you see a complaint string that suddenly disappears, be wary. Look out also for simple complaints about the veracity of other advertisers or old expired adverts staying up. Even if this is not an obvious scam it could indicate a less than active moderation policy)
If you are looking for employment take care not to give away your contact details such as email address. Try to use a site that uses anonymous replies or replies via the site. A displayed email address is an open invitation to "come and have a go".