New variant of an old scam

[VunderBob]

A story that I haven’t posted yet is that my current job has a murky future because of the new Federal budget. My agency actually got a real increase, but the area I work in is getting cut to fund new programs. So far, I don’t see an immediate layoff danger, but because I’m still recovering from the last layoff, I posted a resume on CareerBuilder.com Thursday night just in case. I’m not going to be blindsided again.

Well, lo and behold, I have a new job. I’ve been hired via e-mail, and all I have to do is send them my bank information.

Dear VunderBob:

Your resume was reviewed and accepted. Please read this
email to the end; here is some information about our company and about
your future work.

Company has been known in the Internet technologies market for almost 4
years. We are engaged in web-design and all other aspects related to this
sphere: scripts writing, making banners, logos, sites patterns,
development of web applications and technical support. Our company is
registered and located in Australia . We also have some offices in south -
east Europe. Staff of the following offices consists of groups of grade A
web - designers and programmers. For the first two years we basically
worked only with clients from Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Later
gradually we managed to penetrate the world market in this sphere thanks
to professionals in the Internet technologies, computer graphics and
programming who work for us and are capable to execute complex corporate
orders and to facilitate the exclusive projects. We boast to have clients
in other countries. By May, 2004 75 % of all our orders were from clients
in the USA and Europe. After the penetration into the world market our
turnover increased several times, but at the same time we unfortunately
faced certain problems.

Popular online - payment systems, such as PayPal (www.paypal.com) and
similar ones, BidPay (www.auctionpayments.com), AmericanExpress payment
systems (www.americanexpress.com) and other electronic methods of payment
are not supported in some countries where payment systems and other
electronic methods of payment are not supported our offices opened… We
had a problem with reception of payments from clients since we could not
support even the basic and most popular ways of payment. Even when a
client made a money transfer with a bank, we could get it from another
country only 10-15 days after and therefore our business was inevitably
ruined. Additionally several factors were against our business. It is not
a secret that for the last years the role of online banking has soared up,
and many clients would prefer to make money transfers not leaving their
house. Therefore bank details of a decent financial institution in a
civilized country were necessary for a successful company of our level
with good reputation, which was looking forward to find an opportunity to
use popular online payment methods which were not available to a citizen
We had to find a radically new approach to this
problem. The decision to find a financial representative in the USA was
made to solve a lot of problems due to payment methods. You, as the
citizen the USA can help us with these questions.

The working scheme is as follows.
After you give us all necessary bank details you will receive payments
from our clients. After the reception of a bank or electronic
transfer/cheque you will send us the money by Western Union
(www.westernunion.com). This method is very convenient for us. You will
receive 8 % from the sum of payment for this service (you just take this
sum out of the total amount of money you get).
Thus you can earn up to 2500 USD per month, taking into the account the
fact that you will work at home, have a flexible working schedule, simple
and small amount of work (no more than 8 hours per week). You will pay all
transfer commissions only from our money. You bear the responsibility for
safety of our money only against us. We also keep an eye on money origin
and on customer’s honesty to provide legality and safety of our business.

Please send us following information for further steps to employ you

I. Fill in the form (if this information is specified in your resume, then
please send it once again for confirmation):

Full name and surname:
The address :
City:
State/ province:
Post code:
Contact phone number:
E-mail:

II. As we are going to entrust to you sufficient sums of money, we’ll
need some details to check and update the information. Please, send us by
e-mail or by fax a copy of your driver’s license (or other basic document).

After we get this information, our Project Manager will contact you and
give further instructions related to this work and will inform about the
date to start the work.
Our company is registered in 2001 and fully legal.
Here is our information.
Our Postal Address Is:
Financial Services Centre
PO Box 231
Civic Square
ACT AUSTRALIA 2608

Our Bank Details are:
Account Name: PROweb-services
Account Number 10010887
BSB 064008
Swift; CTBAAU2S

Regards,
PROweb-services

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I haven’t figured out if I’m going to trash it without comment, reply and tell them to go pound sand, or something else. I don’t think I could get them to show their faces and how a stupid sign (at least without a lot of help).

Anyone with an idea on how to toy with these clowns?

[Tuckerfan]

Well, you could always report them to the appropriate authorities (not that it’s likely to do much good, but it couldn’t hurt). Of course, that’s not all that fun. You might be able to pick up some pointers from these guys. Here’s a pic to a fake check I got from a Nigerian scammer (notice that the account number is clearly visible, not that I’m suggesting that you give that account number to the scammers or Richard Nixon’s SSN [567-68-0515], but you could).

[pinkfreud]

I wonder what the main scam is. Are they going to siphon all the money out of your bank account and then disappear, or are they going to use you for money-laundering over a period of time?

[astro]

We boast to have clients in other countries!

Belay that Nigerian hooting VunderBob, for I too boast to have clients in other countries! I sold my sealed copy of Madonna’s SEX book to an Australian, a pair of yellow Larry Mahan cowboy boots to a German, and a Minolta camera to Canadian all giving popular feedback. Give me your bank information instead so that I may process your payments promptly!

Several factors are for my business! My online Paypal account soars up when your many clients would prefer to make money transfers not leaving their house, and place them into my account. I trust your civilization and good reputation level VunderBob! Bank with me and safely facilitate your exclusive projects.

[Cunctator]

Needless to say, the *Financial Services Centre * is **not ** listed in the ACT White Pages.

[VunderBob]

@Cunctator

Needless to say, the Financial Services Centre is not listed in the ACT White Pages.

I wouldn’t have guessed that you would find them, Cunc.

A small update. I reported them to both Netzero (original e-mail was from a Netzero account) and CareerBuilder.Com, where they prey. Both places seem real interested in nailing the perps.

I know, it’s not as much fun as getting some goon half a world away to send me a picture of him or her holding a sign that says “Ivanna Humpalot”, but it does make life rougher for them.

[LeeshaJoy]

What’s really funny is that I get these kind of emails on a regular basis, and I haven’t even registered my resume with any find-a-job websites yet.