Online Job Scam: Saved from a scam!
The township of Columbia in Michigan was in the news for being at the center of an attempt at internet fraud. A resident of the rural township, famous otherwise for its blueberries, was targeted by internet fraudsters to dupe her of her money. She was actually lucky to get away from being conned.
The lady was contacted by fraudsters after finding her name at Michigan Talent Bank, an online job site. She was offered a job for performing online work for a company run by the fraudsters. Since it was an internet based work, the company said that she would require a computer and an internet connection at home. However, the company was ready to pay for the computer.
The company sent her five money orders of $500 each and asked her to cash them at any local bank. Then she was directed to send $2000 from this amount presumably to a vendor who would send the computer home after receiving the amount. She was told that she could keep the remaining $500 from the above amount.
The lady would have been scammed of $2000 if she had sent the money as directed. Some alert employees at her local bank were able to make out straight away that the check she had presented was a forged one. Had they not been alert enough, then the discovery would have been made weeks after the lady would have sent her money.
There were a couple of things which the lady probably missed and which would have alerted her to the scam early. Firstly, the exercise of asking her to encash company checks and then send some money out of it seems questionable. Why was the company asking her to do it, when it was simpler to do so, on its own? Then, the fact that it was appointing her without conducting an interview should also raise doubts.
Here is a quick list for jobseekers to help them ascertain whether an offer is genuine or not:
- Search online about a company; if it is a scam then other victims might have reported it online.
- Try to contact the company through other means like phone or ordinary mail. One obvious way to blow the lid of an email scam!
- Find out their address and check if it is correct or not.
Aside from these, the very routine of sending a check and sending part of it back after encashing it should ring alarm bells as it is the hallmark of an online scam!
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