Virtual Assistant Forums | Work from Home

ilovecats54 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-01-2009

Hello,

I'm sure many of you have seen the wonderful employment opportunities both in the papers and on the Internet that explain they are a foreign company and cannot yet open financing here in the States, so they need people to accept payments in the form of checks or money orders from their customers. You then have to go to your own personal bank, deposit the funds, calculate and keep your percentage, and send the rest via Western Union to this foreign company?

OMG it sounds so WONDERFUL and easy. Of course there are many different individuals putting ads like this in, all using different company names, etc. My first few times being exposed to this I was so tempted. But then I'd look it up on the BBB.com and never pursued any of them, thank goodness.

My question is WHY, when this is so obviously a scam, have the authorities not been able to swoop in on these idiots and stop these ads before they even appear? And WHY do these job sites allow this type of ad to even be posted?

It angers me that people, out of desperation, can be and I'm sure have been taken by these people.

Once I saw an ad like this and looked up the company name being used, it was a legitimate company here in Northern California I think. I phoned them directly and asked them about the ad I'd seen. They immediately said they were NOT looking for anyone and that they had received many other calls, and that it was a fraud. I sent the email with full headers to them. I hope it was useful.

I hope the FBI or somebody gets on the ball soon with these scams!

Thanks for listening!

JKVirtualOffice · #2 (**permalink**) 01-01-2009

You can report these emails to the government directly at: www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

I have this link posted on my Contact page with a warning to spammers that all unsolicited spam will be reported. I don't seem to be getting nearly as much spam since I've posted that.

Virtually Dee · #3 (**permalink**) 01-01-2009

Kim, putting a link to the FTC website on your page is an excellent idea.

ilovecats54 · #4 (**permalink**) 01-01-2009

Kimberly, that's great! I love that idea. I'm going to go to that website and save it because I know I'll come across this "money laundering" opportunity again, and probably real soon! I may have even saved some of the previous emails. I can send those.

Thanks again! I'm so happy to be able to learn new things from everyone. It is much appreciated!!

jnix612 · #5 (**permalink**) 01-02-2009

Michelle I understand your frustration. I too become angry when I hear these stories on the news. Based on what is on the news when they interview the authorities, it's not that easy to track these people because many are in other countries. However, to have it posted in a newspaper is new to me. The real question is, why would the newspaper post such an ad? Something is wrong with that picture.

I too question peoples level of comprehension when they are scamed. I guess what is obvious to me is not so obvious to the next.

ilovecats54 · #6 (**permalink**) 01-02-2009

Hi Jessica,

Actually in mentioning the newspaper, I was referring more to the "build CD cases at home" which has been in my local Pennysaver for years, and that is also where I found the dataformoney.com which I referred to in a separate post. Oh and you know what, I think once in the newspaper there was simply some catch phrase like "work at home, computer needed" and an email address. So I emailed and received this typical money laundering response of receiving money, depositing, and wiring to them, as I described above. So they have their ways to post anywhere - their catch-phrase is vague, and you want to find out more.

I don't think it's so much the comprehension that is a problem, although I'm sure it can contribute sometimes. I think it's more desperation of people; they're in debt, they want to work at home so badly, etc. that hooks them. I know I'm intelligent, but I'll tell you, your heart starts racing when you dream of the possibility of this "wonderful work at home job", and that's how some people have taken the extra step of actually joining these scams. I genuinely feel sorry that they are put in that position by these thieves.

I hope someday employment scams will be a thing of the past!!

Take care, and have a nice weekend!!

MrsAn · #7 (**permalink**) 01-02-2009

Working in a banking environment for the last 15 years I have seem this happen a huge amount of times. Fortunatly we trained out tellers to follow a list of questions when presented with said item. Then we had the customer fillout a questionaire before negotiating the check.

The sad thing about it is these people have stolen real checks, sometimes bank checks, or cashier checks from actual banks in the US and have sent them out to unsuspecting people. THe worst is that they target the elderly and most often times they are the ones getting scammed.

Basically it is a twist on the Nigerian scam. Terrible thing people do to others.

I recently saw a posting of "shipping items to foriegn lands". Just scarey, thank God I saw the special on 20/20 or some show of the like that had some girl doing this and it was packages she would get, would never open and she would just end up shipping them out again. Of course it was all stolen goods, and she ended up getting arrested.

Worst part is you want people to trust eachother and then these people just ruin it!

VBP · #8 (**permalink**) 01-05-2009

What a great idea!! Thanks for sharing this! I compose several newsletters for clients and will forward the link on to them. This would be great to post on our "Contact Us" portion of our web sites too.

ilovecats54 · #9 (**permalink**) 01-05-2009

Hi Kristina,

You know I cannot believe the outcome of the story you saw on 20/20! I am so tired of innocent people being penalized for crook's behavior!! It reminds me of a story I heard recently, not about humans, but about a dog; this poor sweet puppy was beaten by some idiot, who ended up getting arrested for animal cruelty, thank goodness, BUT the puppy was badly injured, SO at first it was going to be put to sleep (WHAT DID IT DO WRONG????) because of what happened to it - and of course who in the world was going to pay the vet bill??? - it's life came down to the almighty buck, through no fault of it's own. Thank goodness it got adopted by one of the Detectives.

Sorry to get off on a rant, AAARRRGGGHHH, but I just can't believe how things work sometimes!!

OK, on to more posts

AAARRRGGGHHH!