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.

Monday, May 12, 2008

UFG Finance

This is just another typical money mule scam, probably Russian (or close by), in which Australians are being targeted. In truth, the money sent to the "transfer manager" is stolen from other online bank accounts, and the process of forwarding it via Western Union is money laundering. If you have signed up, do not forward any money sent to you, but rather contact your bank and inform them that the transaction is suspicious.

   Domain Name: UFG-FINANCE.COM
   Registrar: DIRECTI INTERNET SOLUTIONS 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: 19-apr-2008
   Creation Date: 19-apr-2008
   Expiration Date: 19-apr-2009

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: UFG Finance <[redacted (random, false)]>
Date: 2008/5/11 (UTC)
Subject: Reperesentative job in Australia
To: [redacted (privacy)]


This email contains offer about remote work.
General requirements:
- 18-60 years old
- live in Australia or in another country from our site's country list
- cell phone
- bank account with any bank
- accuracy, responsibility and fast tasks execution
- 1-2 free hours per day
Description:
Our company is over 4 years on the electonic transfers market and we have developed own system of financial transaction for the Third World countries.
For all less-developed countries we recruit employees from forehanded countries such Australia.
The most perspective position is transfer's manager.
It is not important if you work or unemployed. The main thing is that you can visit your bank, Western Union brach or our Sidney's office during the working day.
Please register on our website. After all your information is checked, your personal manager will contact you to specify the kind of your work in your region.
About us:
UFG Finance was founded by Georgio Lacheni, Italian millionaire. He was the first person who announced to community that financial market can make the best profit in less-developed countries.
Fast Transfer System works since 2004 and more than 3 millions of transactions completed.
Our business is completely legal in international laws.
We can provide you with online access to our support site. You'll able to manage your account 24 hours per day just using your cell phone.
Info:
Sorry for any inconvience if you haven't required this email and it was detected as spam. Unfortunally, not all advertising companies on the internet use legal methods of advertising.

Best regards,
HR Department
UFG Finance
www.ufg-finance.com

1 comment:

Spotter said...

A correspondent has brought it to my attention that this job is also being offered on the job ad site seek.com.au. Please bear in mind that most major job ad sites do NOT check whether the job is a scam. It's not that it can't be done -- I can spot these scams a mile away -- it appears that they just don't want to cut into their profits to protect the job seekers. After all, it's the advertisers who pay the bills, not the job seekers. They do, however, have warnings about their lack of quality control, and I note that seek.com.au has a means to report fraudulent job ads, so people like you and I can do their quality control for them as an unpaid public service if we want to.