Seems like everyone and their dog is attempting to contrive methods of scamming innocenct job searchers out of money.

There are common characteristics that hold true for ALL scams of this nature.

#1 The email or letter comes unsolicited.

#2 Payment for your efforts is a percentage of the whole check, money order, etc.

#3 There is either a money gram or wire transfer to the 'bad guys' after you either deposit the check in your legitimate bank account or go to your favorite trusted cashing location.

Something I noticed in this email that I had not in subsequent scams of this nature is the statement that all monies are tax free, so there is no concern of needing to report your income to the IRS. Well, that makes sense to me, there is NOT going to be any income - just bad check charges. Now you may can report those on your taxes, but I doubt it.

PLEASE understand that if you fall for something like this, if your finances are in bad shape now, they are just about to get 100% worse, plus you could very well have the authorities knocking on your door wanting to arrest YOU for money laundering.

Here is today's email scam -

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EMPLOYMENT; JOB OFFER

Hello Dear,

We are an European Art company with an immediate opening for a part-time book keeper/administrative assistant to join our team. You will be working for us from home. Thames Gallery Of Arts islocated in Aberdeen, Scotland. We exhibit Contemporary art paintings by emerging and mid-career artists, including abstracts, landscapes and figures. Our Gallery initiates and presents an extensive program for local and national exhibitions.

The Gallery's wide client-base includes private collectors, art consultants, corporate art consultants, architects and interior designers as well as business, government, diplomatic and social VIPs .Our Gallery offers the client an extraordinary opportunity to acquire some of the most carefully curated art in the contemporary, global art market. We are yet to open an office in the U.S or have representatives in U.S; all our sales are made seamlessly integrated through a company-wide computer network.

Thus we need to get payments for our products as soon as it possible and about 90% of our customers prefer to pay through Certified Cheques and Money orders based on the amount involved. Unfortunately, we are unable to cash these payments from the US because most international Cheques take about 10-14 working days for cash to be made available. We lose about 75,000 USD of net income each month because we have money transfer delays. We have decided to open this new job position for solving this problem.

Please note that this job may take 2-3 hours of your time on a weekly basis and will give you lots of free time to do other jobs. We are looking only for the worker who satisfies our requirements and will be a competent assistant. We are glad to offer this job position to you and the best of your cooperation is highly needed.

YOUR TASK:

1. Receive payment from Customers, No sales involved.

2. Cash Payments at your Bank or cash stores.

3. Deduct 10% which will be your percentage/pay on Per Payment processed.

4. Forward balance after deduction of percentage/pay to any of the regional offices you will be contacted to send payment to.

Payments are to be forwarded either by Money Gram or Western Union Money Transfer depending on the one more convenient for you. Charges for western union/Money Gram will be paid by us and not from your commission. Local Money transfers takes barely minutes or sometimes an hour, so it will give us a possibility to get customer's payment almost immediately .Also, all checks and money orders sent to you are all tax free, so you do not have to bother about the Irs or any other government agency when doing your taxes. Please Note that an Employment/Application Form will be sent to you if you decide to accept our offer.

Thanks Once Again,

Dr. Ben Dominic.

Address: WILNSLOM ROAD WITHINGTON

MANCHESTER P/CODE M204BX

LONDON

Email:xxxxxxxxxx@i12.com

Thames Gallery of Arts...