There was a job posted on my site today that immediately aroused my suspicions. The job was “Part time job: editing texts”. Here’s the job description:
We will provide you with the texts for our employees with the important information and you will correct the texts as an english speaking person and send them back to us.
Salary:
We don’t have a fixed salary for this vacancy. We will pay you $7.00 for every 1Kb of the corrected text. You will get paid at the END of each month. Every month your salary will be different as it depends on your activity.
Example:
If you correct about 5Kb (5kb it about 2 pages A4) of texts per day you will get over $1000.00 at the end of the month.To apply for job please send resume to:
someladysname.marriage@gmail.comAs soon as we revise your aplication we will contact you within 24 hours.
If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask.
Awaiting for your application.Requirements: -Location: only usa persons
-Age: 20+
-Home computer, e-mail address and Microsoft Word
-Responsibility
Salary: 1000
Website:
Contact Email: somelady.marriage@gmail.com
So, it looked fishy to me at first glance due to the awkward grammar. The second red flag came from the use of a gmail account. I then looked at the credit card that was used and the information didn’t match what was submitted when they registered to post a job on my site. The phone number given there was an international number.
After I voided the credit card transaction and deleted the listing, I plugged the first sentence of the listing into Google and hit the jackpot. Seems this scam is all over the place. A new twist on an old theme: Money laundering.
I came across an article by Grey McKenzie, National Cyber Security Founder about a woman who fell for this scheme out of desperation.
A tragic example of ordinary people falling victim to the predatory practices of unscrupulous scammers is the recent story of a Keller woman. She became involved in an Internet money laundering scheme and will have to repay over $38,000 out of her own pocket.
She responded to the ad and was hired to do text editing. They actually did send her work and she was paid for it, obviously to gain her trust. Eventually, they offered her another position, one that would pay more: about $2,900 a month in salary, plus a 5 percent commission. It involved her opening a bank account to be used just for this job and accepting wire transfers from people in the U.S. and then sending money via Western Union to people in the Ukraine.
McKenzie writes:
“I wasn’t looking at this as clearly,” Boothe said. “I had a touch of desperation.”
She was unwittingly using her bank accounts to launder stolen money.
The Ukraine scammers supplied stolen bank account numbers and routing numbers which can be found at the bottom of any check and she used them to transfer money from those accounts into the two accounts she had set up specifically for the business.”
At another blog, there’s a whole slew of people who responded to this ad. Some got so far as to actually complete some “text editing assignments” but thankfully none of them went so far as to open a bank account and accept or send payments.
As with the woman who did fall for it, it’s often desperation that clouds our judgment. Just doing a simple check by plugging part of the text of the job listing into a search engine can give you all the information you need.
If you feel that you have been a victim of this or any other scam you can file a complaint here.
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Tags: Scams
Wow! Great article! I received this e-mail scam today!
I got this email this week. I did some research and found the information here that answered my questions. Could this be true/ Is this a real work at home job? I’m so glad there are people out there that are willing to share information with each other and stop this scams from harming more people. “THANK YOU SHARON”.
EMAIL BELOW:
Good Day,
We offer a part time job on your computer.
Job Description:
We will provide you with the texts for our employees with the
important information and you will correct the texts as an English
speaking person and send them back to us.
Salary:
We don’t have a fixed salary for this vacancy. We will pay you $7.00
for every 1Kb of the corrected text. You will get paid at the END of
each month. Every month your salary will be different as it depends on
your activity.
Example:
If you correct about 5Kb (5kb it about 2 pages A4) of texts per day
you will get over $1000.00 at the end of the month.
Requirements:
-Location: Has no value (the main good knowledge of English language)
-Age: 21+
-Home computer, e-mail address and Microsoft Word
-Responsibility
To apply for job please send us the following information to:
__________
FULL NAME:
HOME ADDRESS:
CITY, STATE, ZIP CODE:
Phone number (home or cell, but SHOULD BE available any day time):
E-MAIL:
AGE:
OCCUPATION:
EDUCATION:
AVAILABLE HOUR TO WORK WITH US:
___________
As soon as we revise your application we will contact you within 24 hours.
If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask.
Awaiting for your application.
–
Thank you,
Love & Wedding
oh no…i responded to that email 2 days ago i think. i assumed it came from one of the temp agencies ive applied with. am i vulnerable now because i sent a response? i sure wish id seen this warning a few days earlier…
Susan, you are fine unless you accepted any of the payments, did any money transfers or sent them sensitive information like your social security number or bank account numbers, etc.
I have been working with a text comapany for a week now. ive done about 14 text now. i hope this isnt the same thing .i think its called wedding agency .i havent gave any personal info other then name and adress. Are there any legit text jobs out there
I would be very careful…that sounds like the same kind of job.
My brother just called me 2 days ago informing me my mother has gotten into this sort of thing. She had been doing what seemed to be a legitimate work from home job for the past 6 months or so, but all of a sudden she’s stopped doing that and got involved in something where she’s already faxed a copy of her drivers license, a blank check, and other info. They apparently Western Unioned her a couple hundred bucks to “show they’re authentic” that she could keep. Now they’ve deposited around 8,000 dollars into her account, that in just a few days she’s supposed to withdraw and go to a different western union and wire the money to someone else. Fortunately, with the exception of the first 200, she hasn’t done anything with the major money and has already been to the bank and gave them all the info about this “company” and they are working to return the funds or whatever. My concern is she’s given out too much info that will possibly cause her major problems down the road (plus they now know where she lives too :/ ). FORTUNATELY, she was able to recognize she may be in something quirky and contacted her “more technical” sons in time to prevent major financial damage (she definately cannot afford to have to mess with legal issues and all, let alone getting her money stolen).
So, basically, I’m just writing this to tell everyone PLEASE, PLEASE pay attention to people you may know, especially the elderly or whatever people who maybe aren’t “on top of their game” (i.e. my mother) but still have a little bit of computer/internet know-how and think they may be able to make some easy money. It’s that old adage (sp?) “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”. Seems there’s quite a few people who seem to forget that at the wrong time.
We should be finding out more info today or monday and hopefully she’ll be okay and good luck to the others that may have started getting into one of these and hope you can get out before anything happens (and for heaven’s sake, if you’ve already provide personal info like address, check, drivers license please take appropriate measures to protect yourself immediately, like putting fraud alerts on the 3 credit reporting agencies…you can do it for free by calling them or pay LifeLock to do it for you, bout to provide that info to my mom to have her do it).
Good luck all.
Thank you very much for taking the time reporting this scam. I really appreciate it. I too have received two or more of this same kind of email message. I almost responded to it, because it looks legit and something I could do at home while waiting for a permanent work.
Great reporting!!! This is out and out MONEY LAUNDERING.
I receive this email today 11/04/09 checked it out as I always do and came across your article explaining the type of scam this is. Thanks for the heads up. The website provided is the one that I am suppose to click on to send my information to.
stagebranch1985@yahoo.com