Dodgy Job

[~StarBright~]

I found what sounded like a great job online the other week. Flexible hours, work from home, great pay!! Sounds great right??!!

So i applied and got a standard email back wanting more info, a new application form yadda yadda yadda,. Check out the website of this company and its a pretty basic looking thing, one page, nothing fancy.

The job was basically "collecting money" (amounts up to $10,000) from "clients" in Australia and "transfering" these said funds through my "personal bank account" onto the "company"....

ALARM BELLS!!!! I did some more emailing, tried to call the number of the company and still have not had anyone willing to either answer the phone or return my many messages.

Any emails i send i get an automated response, the last one was saying "congratulations yo have the job, please send us a clearly scanned copy of your licence, birth certificate and or passport for identidy varification"..... Big alarm belss and NO way was i doing that!!

I did some more googling and found a company with a very similar name who looked like the offered a similar service and spoke to someone there who said i was right to be wary and that if ever they have financial transactions it has to be done through a registered company, not just a personal bank account. He said it sounded very dodgy and i was right to not go any further. Also within the last two weeks the website has been upgraded to look better and the name has changed!! So today i kept getting email after email from the job company saying you have the job yadda yadda yadda, please send this and that... all of the emails have grammer and spelling mistakes and so does the website!!!

I have tried to contact the online place that I found the job, but they dont seem to care so i called the Fair trading people and also Accc and reported it. They did a whois search and found the owner of the domain name was registered in Moscow, Russia!! So I am thinking either identity theft, or if they do actually ever get someone to do the money thing, then its money laundering!! They apparently have an office in New York, and one in Sydney in Lane Cove, which is apparently in a Shopping centre according to Google earth. The guy i spoke to said he doubts any of these exist!!

Now i know that i cant name any names, (can i- i will if i can!!!!!) but please everyone BEWARE if you see a job advertised for flexible working hours and a large amount of money paid for not doing much at all!!! And let anyone know you can!! I would hate for a young person who is maybe struggling at UNI or a stay home mum to fall for this, coz it is a perfect sounding job to earn some good money!!!!!! I wish it wasnt dodgy coz we could really use the extra cash about now!!!

Because its not a .com.au site or business Australia cant do anything to stop them except to let people know!! So thats what i am doing!!!!!

Im really bummed though, coz it sounded like such a good job!!!!!

[krystals]

good on you for recognising the signs! (I'd love to know what the name is, I'm always searching!)

The tip my Dad gave me, and I always go by is : "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!" I'll always investigate things that seem to pay out heaps for not much work- if it were that easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it??

Thanks for passing this on x

[Catherine]

Thanks for sharing this warning ~starbright~.

It is very important to be wary of these things. Poor spelling and grammer, difficulty connecting to a real person, all very good signs. Good move reporting it.

It is worth doing some background research, because often a scam is very easy to uncover.

And I guess if it sounds too good to be true...

Thanks for sharing

[Rivlas]

Thanks for the warning.

DD2 applied for one of these work from home jobs but when they sent her the DVD and brochure all it said in the 30 pages was how you can get ahead. Nowhere did it give me any idea of what she had to do except promote someone elses products online. She would have to use our phone line for calls and internet.

We live in Vic and the guy who will be her 'coach' is in Qld. Have told her no way to reply to him.

It's sad that they offer these sorts of things as she is a full time student and cannot work due to her irregular Uni hours.