Job scam quick guide: it's a scam if...

  • they want you to collect and forward money in any way (a "money mule" job). You'll wind up engaged in money laundering, personally defrauded via expertly forged cheques, money orders, etc, or defrauding someone else who pays for goods that never arrive.
  • they want you to receive packages and reship them somewhere else. The goods will have been obtained fraudulently, and they're just using you to make the shipping address appear local. You will be aiding fraud.
  • they want up-front payment (either to them or someone else) of any sort for anything before you can get the job. This is advance fee fraud: there is no job -- it's just a big con to extract money from you.
  • they want you to buy any kind of "membership" or "kit" in order to start. Forget it -- it's not a real job at all: they're trying to sell you something, and they're probably making a bunch of other false claims about it if they're pitching it as a "job".
  • it's a job offer, and it's spam. There are LOTS of these scams about, as you can see.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Osell International

I've recently received two of these in a spamtrap account, and I'll report it while it's still fresh. The job description talks about forwarding payments and receiving payments directly to a bank account, so this is almost certainly the usual kind of money mule scam associated with phishing.

   Domain Name: OSELL-JOB.NET
   Registrar: DIRECT INFORMATION PVT LTD D/B/A PUBLICDOMAINREGISTRY.COM
   Whois Server: whois.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Referral URL: http://www.PublicDomainRegistry.com
   Name Server: NS1.BIZHOSTING.RU
   Name Server: NS2.BIZHOSTING.RU
   Updated Date: 02-mar-2008
   Creation Date: 02-mar-2008
   Expiration Date: 02-mar-2009

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mr. Paolo [random surname] <[random address]>
Date: 5 Mar 2008 XX:XX UTC
Subject: work in Osell International
To: [redacted (privacy)]

Hello,

We thought that you might be interested in part time position to work from home with our company. My name is Paolo [surname], project coordinator and your direct supervisor at Osell International. Please read the information bellow about our company and your job description.

Osell International is an online-to-offline international money transfer service. Osell International currently offers a secure, fast, and inexpensive means to send money from any of 26 countries to recipients in 18 countries. Osell International's headquarters is located in Rome, Italy. For more information, please visit our website: www.osell-job.net

There are 5 openings for a representative to assist in creation our virtual local presence for the back office functions. Person, who is accepted for this position, will perform these tasks:


1. Facilitate the financial transactions from the clients. Osell International will organize the sales and marketing campaigns. Our manager will inform you when the transaction is expected to arrive.
2. Report to our manager on arrival of the payment.
3. Forward the payment to the customer at the destination. The instructions will be provided on the case-per-case bases.
4. The average monthly salary is about 4000 - 5000AUD. Your wages will be paid every month from the start of your employment by direct deposit to your bank account. You must have a bank account to receive wages from us. Plus you will receive a commission (3.5% - 4%) for the completed transaction. This commission will be paid out after every transaction. Also we have a rating system and bonus systems for the quarterly review. Dependant on your work results, you might be promoted to the management positions within 3-6 months.

To continue please fill in our online application:

http://www.osell-job.net/register.php

Your information will be used only within Osell International. Every employee, who satisfies our requirements, will be contacted by our manager. At that time you will be able to ask any questions you might have.

Best regards,

Mr. Paolo [surname]
Project coordinator
Osell International
http://www.osell-job.net

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