I received this as an email from CareerBuilder.com. I may or may not have posted my resume with them – I don’t remember. I did post it with Monster. It seems…strange to me. Why can’t they post their own ads? Why pay someone $100 to post ads? How many ads can they possibly need to post? Why the newspaper when everyone uses the computer these days? I guess if the $100 includes the money to post the ad, and you take your share out after you’ve paid for the ad, the compensation could be pretty low. Maybe that’s the catch. I know, I could just email them, but I feel like knowing what you all think. Is this a scam you’ve heard of? Does it seem strange to you too?
Job Description: You will post advertising ads in your local newspapers and magazines, such as sales ads, employment ads or real estate ads.
You do NOT need special skills or degrees. The position is very easy and can be done by anyone without the necessity to leave your current job!
Our company is located in Paris, France. We need your services in USA for the specified position, Newspaper Agent. You will spend max. 2-4 hours weekly, in your spare time.
All you have to do is post the ads from home calling newspapers at toll free numbers, of course after you receive the content that must be posted from us and the money needed to post in newspapers. Almost all our ads are employment ads. Yes, we will provide the money to post in newspapers. You just have to call the newspaper and place the ad. There will be 4-10 ads placed weekly, for each ad you post you are paid with $100, you will deduct your share from money we send you to post the ads.
It sounds like they send you the money first. (I didn’t post the whole ad, to avoid posting a novel, but they specify that they send you the money and then you deduct your share out of the money.)
I would guess that you pay up frontthe cost of placing the ads with the $100 being your reimbursment. Only problem is, the check from the company bounces, leaving them with free ads and you out the money.
We will select papers from your US where the classified ads will be placed and will send you the funds to post. You need to place the ads in max. 48 hours after you receive the money from us! This is the only condition we ask.
How you are paid for your services:
Like we specified, there will be 4-10 employment ads placed weekly, for each ad you post you are paid with $100, you will deduct your share from money we send you to post the ads.
I’m guessing they’ll send you bad checks…it’ll take a while for the bank to notice so they won’t bounce right away. You think you have the cash and you pay your own money to post the ads, but then the check bounces after the 48 hours.
That’s nothing but red flags to me. I’m not sure what the angle is, but it stinks to high heaven. Back when I was a young unemployed person, I went to all the seminars and answered all the ads for unspecified jobs that said make a lot of money doing something… unspecified (or too easy). They were all scams, every last one.
Ah, yeah. That makes sense. Basically the same concept the first posters suspected, except in a different order. That’s why they say you must place the ads within 48 hours.
-Inexplicable urgency
-Too-good-to-be-true promise (we’ll send you the money first)
-And for a small bonus - exclamation mark (‘You need to place the ads in max. 48 hours after you receive the money from us!’)
Scam-diddly-am-scam. What’s odd is how little they appear to gain from it. I think if you took them up on it, they would try to suck you into some other more profitable(for them) scam.
This seems very, very odd. Sometimes the reveal happens after your initial response, as in you could respond to this ad and then be told you just have to send X amount of money to cover blah blah blah.
Bottom line - why can’t they post their own ads? Answer - they can, so that’s not what this is about.
Yeah, there’s got to be a deposit or registration fee, or something. Or they send you a check for $1000 instead of $100 by ‘mistake’ and then phone you and say “Oops, please can you cash it and just send us a check for the $900” (then theirs bounces and yours doesn’t).
And will that foreign company really know about US advertising laws (especially with respect to employment ads) that the content they send you will be accepted by the newspaper?
I really doubt it in this post-9/11 security paranoia world.
Did careerbuilder really send it to you, or was it a company via careerbuilder send it to you? There is a difference.
This really reminds me of a movie, the name of which I can’t remember. It’s a lot like Half Baked, though… So High, maybe?
In the movie, the two pot heads make money by placing ads in the paper somehow. When anybody asks them how they make money like that, their answer is, in a Chong like voice, “It’s complex, man!”