Scam Advert in Local Papers
August 24th, 2007On Wednesday of this week, Damien Mulley reported on his blog about a scam that was being operated via an advert in the Irish Examiner. The advert offers a jon that pays £3000 per week, for 2-3 hours work. When you contact them, they tell you it is to do with lodging cheques, removing your comission and sending them on the balance, as they are a foreign (UK or US) based company which cannot legally setup accounts in your country.
Great money for little work, isn’t it? Like everything in life, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is!
This scam is not just limited to the Irish Examiner. I found the advert below in today’s Donegal News:
It’s the exact same, almost word for word, as the ad Damien highlighted on Wednesday. I setup a fresh email account and contacted them, and received practically the same reply:
We source the following variety of clothing materials:-batiks, assorted fabrics for interior decor, silk and traditional costumes which we have clients we supply weekly in the England .Presently with the amount of Orders we have, we cannot put them on hold for fear of loosing the customers outrightly.
It’s a known fact,that it’s not easy to start a business in a new market (being the England ). There are hundreds of competitors, close direct contacts between suppliers and customers and other difficulties,which impede our sales promotion.We have decided to deliver the products upfront, it’s very risky but it would push up sales by 25 percent. Unfortunately we are unable to open Bank Accounts in England without first registering the company name. Secondly we cannot cash these payments from the England soon enough, as international Cheques take about 15-20 working days for cash to be made available.We lose about 75,000 USD of net income each month because we have money transfer delays.Your task is to coordinate payments from customers and help us with the payment process.You are not involved in any sales or marketing.Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer (usually through FEDEX).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 Cheque and some of our customers like to pay via direct transfer into Credit Card which is most secure and fast unlike cheques. So We decided to open this new job position for solving this problem.Your tasks are:
1. Receive payment from Customers.
2. Cash Payments at your Bank (Upon my instruction).
3. Deduct 300 pounds which will be your commission/pay on each Payment processed
4. Forward balance after deduction of commission/pay to any of the offices you will be contacted to send payment to.(Payment is to forwarded either by MoneyGram or Western Union Money Transfer Preferably).But the problem we have is trust, But we have our way of getting anyone that gets away with our money, I mean the IRS and Secret Service branch in Washington gets involve.
Our payments will be issued out in your name and you can have them cashed at your bank or other Cashing Services.Deduct your commission and forward the balance to the company . If you are interested, N: B, Please send to me the listed information below:
#Your full name:
#Your full home address,
#Your age,#Occupation and as well your #marital status, and your gender,
#direct contact telephone number:
#Your Bank name Only (only your bank name and nothing else).
NB:- If you have a credit card, then our customers can make direct transfer and on each payment you received via Credit Card, you shall be deducting 5% out of the payment you received and here are the neccessary information needed
Thanks for your anticipated action and we hope to hear back from you.
very respectfully.
They claim to represent an Art Gallery in Houston, Texas, and seem to think that I’m in England (I told them I read the ad in the Donegal News).
This is a very definite scam, in a similar vein to those emails which claim to offer a cut for helping someone to move money from some War-torn African country, simply by handing over your bank details.
I wouldn’t blame the paper for this, either the Examiner or the Donegal News. People have to take responsibility; this is clearly too good to be true!
Update: Did some snooping, the email sent to me originated in Nigeria, whereas the one on Damien Mulley’s blog originated in Israel.
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10 Responses to “Scam Advert in Local Papers”
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August 24th, 2007 at 10:21 am
[...] Ad has also appeared in the Donegal News. 419 blogging blogs examiner ireland irish [...]
August 24th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Can you find out where the email came from. I see its a different address from whats in Damiens Blog. Wondering if this also came from Isreal?
August 24th, 2007 at 11:12 am
This one is reporting an IP address in Nigeria, not Israel.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Nigeria eh? Not to be outdone by the Israeli scammers I suppose so they’re copying them. How is it that nobody in the newspapers classifieds section checks these ads, it’s quite obviously a scam just from the wording of the ad alone. What legitimate business uses a hotmail or yahoo email?
August 24th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
How exactly does the scam work?
Cheers
August 24th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
About the location of the scam - I was on to the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland yesterday and they said that the location could just be of an infected computer that has a trojan sending emails so tracing them is a little more difficult than first thought.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
John,
Easy, they send you the cheque and while it is clearing through your bank, you send them the brass. The problem is that the cheque never clears…
August 26th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
[...] by Damien Mulley in the Examiner and then Damien Blake(FF Cllr.) in the Donegal [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Exile,
Thanks for that,
J
September 25th, 2007 at 1:41 am
interesting story.
from what i understand, the bank details are used to take out credit cards under the account holders name.
any credit check on your bank details (assuming good credit history) will allow the scammer to get as many cards as he/she likes.
similar situation is happening on ebay.
imagine the scenario, you’re a seller, good feedback, power seller status..etc
you’re selling something expensive, like a car perhaps..costing 20,000
scammer will contact you, first by email..he’ll say he wants to buy the car from you with bank transfer, so he just needs your account details.
if you gave him these, you’ll never hear from him again.