CareerBuilder

Job and Recruiting Scams via Job Websites (CareerBuilder):
Financial Center, Warsaw, Poland
Kameron Peck

Do you have a resume on Career Builder, Monster or other job website? Have you received an email from Kameron Peck of "Financial Center" in Warsaw, Poland (or ANYWHERE else), through the CareerBuilder, Monster or other jobs website, offering you a job as a "Financial Manager"? But oddly, they require you to pay the "courier company" to send documents, visa's or other items, or cash a large advance check and send some of the money via Western Union? 

At some point in the scam, you will either:

• be asked to send money via Western Union to pay a fee or
• you will receive a very authentic looking check, which will later turn out to be a forgery, after you have sent part of the money from the check via Western Union to the scammer or elsewhere.

It is an AFF / Money transfer Scam.  They'll send you counterfeit checks which you are supposed to deposit, take out some amount, and then MoneyGram or Western Union wire the remaining 90%. There's a reason for this: Western Union and MoneyGrams are cashed immediately and are untraceable and irretrievable. Bank checks can take 1 or 2 weeks to clear!

Of course, since the check is fake, it will bounce a week or so later after you deposit it.  But you have already moneygram'ed the scammers the 90% of the amount, and that is transacted almost instantly.  So you now owe the bank for the full amount. You may also face criminal charges for passing counterfeit checks. See this page for a step-by-step explanation of how the scam unfolds.

In the email below, there are some many red flags, we can't imagine any way it could be legitimate.  Any time any potential employer asks you to send money via Western Union, IT MUST BE A SCAM. No legitimate company would transfer money this way.  They will all have access to a more secure bank wire or direct deposit method.

Understand that CareerBuilder (or Monster.com, or other jobs board) does not condone this scam; the jobs website is being used by the scammer.  CareerBuilder will certainly close them down, as soon as they hear about the scam, so be sure to report it to them (see reporting the scam here)

Other clues that this is a scam are:

• The correspondence contains very odd phrases, strange syntax, poor spelling, poor grammar, capitalization and punctuation.  Clearly not written by an educated business professional.
• The emails are sent OR replied to from a free email account (yahoo, hotmail, gmail, live.com, aol.com, etc.) not a company domain address.
• There is no verifiable company physical address and phone number
• There is no company website or it is clearly shoddy and unprofessional

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Do you have a resume posted online? We'd like to hear from you about your experiences recruiting emails that turned out to be scams or misleading - click here to write us.

Any highlighted passages in the actual scam email below are to draw your attention to clues (the highlighting itself was not present in the original email).

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Sample Job Recruiting scam email:

I thought you'd be interested in this page from CareerBuilder.com.

URL: http://snipurl.com/dukyz/ Comments, if any: Good Morning, <Your name here> We have come across your resume and see you as a potential employee for our company. You may obtain more information about company business activity at our site. We'd like to offer you the Financial Manager position. You may also hold a position in a another company as our vacancy won't require from you a lot of time. Requirements for the Financial manager position: - THE CITIZENSHIP OF THE USA an obligation - Over 22 years old - 2-4hours of free time per week Financial manager position obligations: - Well-timed cashing of the checks drawn on your name - Monthly report on performed operations - Work efficiency Financial manager position payment (earnings, profits): - The first trial month - $1700. It'll grow up to $2500 later on - Every transaction's commission is not less than 10% from cashed check amount or from the amount entered to your account). Our firm undertakes to cover transaction, check clearance and all other expenses at its own cost. If you agree to work for our company, it is necessary for you to: 1) To register yourself on the company's site as a Financial Manager. DURING REGISTRATION, INSERT YOUR DATA CORRECTLY. 2) Follow the instructions provided on the site in the course of registration. Fill in the Contract, etc. Additionally, you may find all the detailed information at our site. TO GET ON OUR SITE, FOLLOW THE LINK AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LETTER. CareerBuilder.com has hundreds of thousands of better jobs! Search for Jobs across the nation or in your own neighborhood! Find a job today: http://www.careerbuilder.com

 

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Research:

They do include an address on their website.  It's in Poland (what a surprise...):

Financial Center
Ul. Chmielna 28 B
Warsaw, 00-020, Poland
+1(631)479-3128

Here's what the scammer's website looks like:

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Reporting the scam

Careerbuilder has a means to let them know about scammers using their system. Here's what CareerBuilder says (click on the feedback link below to use their reporting system):

Please be advised that CareerBuilder will never initiate a request for your personal information vian email or pop-up window. If you ever receive a request for this type of sensitive information, please do not respond and immediately contact CareerBuilder.com customer service at (866) 438-1485 or report the suspected fraud using our feedback form.

If you think you have been a victim of fraud, immediately report the committed fraud to your local police and contact us using our feedback form so steps can be taken for your safety.

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Other Jobs Scams

There are a variety of sleazy scams that look, at first glance, like legitimate job offers.  Before you write back to them, pause a moment and read about the scams below!

Some of the more common job scams are

• credit card applications (in particular, one from "Grey Marketing Team")
• 30biz.com
• Also see these Spam job emails
• Bruce Berman - "I got here, you can, too": Scam Check out our review here.