How to Tell If a Work at Home Job Offer Is an Illegal Money Laundering Position
Financial Money Mules
I have previously described how Internet scam artists having been so successful in gaining access to credit card and bank accounts that they were having problems moving the large sums of money acquired from these sources to places where they could access the stolen funds.
Most of the scam artists are a part of criminal organizations operating out of nations like Russia and the former Soviet states of Belarus and Moldova. However, the funds they are stealing come from places like North America, Western Europe and Australia.
The problem these criminals face is how to move millions of dollars from where they have stolen it back to where they are located without being detected by the authorities.
The criminals' solution is to hire innocent people into moving the money for them by offering these innocent victims what appears to be a legitimate online job that can be done full time or part-time from home.
Of course the people who fall for this scam are unwittingly becoming accomplices in a criminal activity by helping to move stolen money abroad. In the United States this involves breaking both Federal and State laws which can land these victims in serious legal trouble.
The graphic below shows an email I recently received offering me such a job.
Russia, Belarus & Moldolva - Home to Many of these Criminal Organizations
How the Process of Stealing and Moving Money Works
Once the criminals behind this scheme obtain access to bank and credit card accounts, they create and use dummy companies to bill the credit card accounts for phony transactions.
With access to hundreds of thousands of accounts, they can usually get away with a series of small transactions without arousing suspicion on the part of the credit card holder. After all, the holder of the card receives a statement once a month listing all of the charges made during the past month or so making it difficult to recognize small charges that he or she didn't make.
While the stealing may be relatively easy, getting the stolen money into the pockets of the foreign criminals is more difficult.
Most countries monitor the funds that are transferred out of the nation. The United States requires that any amount in excess of $10,000 moving out of the country be reported, making it almost impossible to move millions of dollars abroad $9,999 at a time.
The solution currently being used is to hire individuals to act as receiving agents for the funds. When these receiving agents receive the stolen funds they are instructed to take their commission and then transfer the remainder of the funds to the criminals in amounts under $10,000 via Western Union Money Transfer or similar services.
By hiring thousands of people operating independently as part-time agents, the criminals are able to move the money without being detected.
An added benefit of this type of organizational set-up is that it is decentralized with none of the agents knowing who else is in the organization.
This means that the discovery and closing down of one agent will have very little impact on the organization as a whole.
The extent of this scam was brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago when one of my teenage sons told me about the wonderful job opportunity that he had received from CareerBuilder.com.
As soon as he started to describe the job, I instantly knew what it was.
I told him to delete the email and not to respond to any job offers from the Internet without showing me first.
Not having looked at the email I don't know if the phishers duped Career Builder (a legitimate site) into forwarding the email or if they just made it look like it came from Career Builder.
Since then I have been looking more closely at what my Spam filters at home and work catch and have noticed a large number of such offers addressed to me.
Most of these solicitations are fairly simplistic with a vague offer of good pay, easy spare-time work from home and an email address to reply to for more information.
But a couple have been more sophisticated. One came complete with a web URL which took me to an English language website of a company with an address and phone number in St. Petersburg, Russia.
While the web site was very well done, in terms of layout and graphics, and looked very professional, there were a couple of odd aspects to it. First, it was strange that a company that claimed to be an established Russian company that was just now expanding into the U.S. market had an English only website.
Another odd aspect was the fact that nowhere was there any mention of its products. The final give away was its FAQ page which described in detail how agents were to transfer money by depositing the checks from U.S. clients into their bank account and then withdrawing the money in cash and taking it to Western Union to send to Russia.
Why make an extra trip from the bank to a Western Union office when you can go on line and move the money directly from your account to Western Union?
The answer, of course, is simple. Carrying cash to Western Union will probably go unnoticed as the agent's bank sees the money as simple cash withdrawals by a customer and Western Union sees it as a routine sending of money abroad which many people with relatives abroad do regularly.
It is only when the bank transactions and Western Union transactions are viewed side by side that questions arise. Multiple transfers per week, every week from a specific bank account to Western Union and from Western Union to Russia leaves an electronic trail which will soon attract attention.
I intended to go back later and make copies of the site for this hub, but when I went back a couple of days later all I found was a notice from a Russian ISP stating that the URL was available to purchase.
There is still No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
However, this evening I got lucky and received another email with a web URL. The email itself (see the text capsule below for a copy of the email) gives a good description of the job and how to do it.
When I put dadyshoping.com into my browser I ended up at the website for workplace clothing company named Garvey & Company (Clothing) Ltd.
It was a rather large site with displays of the different lines of clothing the company sold. Unlike the email, which was obviously written by someone who was fluent in English but lacked an understanding of the nuances of the language, the web page was done by a professional who not only knew the nuances of the language but also knew business English and the garment trade as well.
Unlike the lottery scam where the worst that can happen is that recipients who take the bait are tricked out of $2,950, this could be more serious as people who take these jobs are duped into breaking the law.
Unlike the Russian site, this site contained numerous pages of product. But there were two problems.
First there was no place on the site to make a purchase and, second, no place to contact the company other than by calling the telephone number on the home page or writing to them at the address on the home page.
When I did a Google search, the company didn't appear in the results, which was odd. After a number of tries, I entered the name of one of the company's clothing lines and immediately reached the website of Harveys & Company (Clothing) Ltd in Lancashire, England.
Except for the name and address, this site was identical to the Garvey & Company site. However, there was a page to contact them via email and, when you clicked on the clothes you were taken to a page where you could place an order.
It pays to look at these too good to be true offers very carefully.
Money laundering is a crime and, while most will be able to prove that they were legitimately duped and probably be let off, they will find themselves having to deal, not with a bank manager seeking to recover the $2,950 for the check that bounced, but with the FBI and IRS for crimes involving illegal use of the banking system, moving money illegally and helping to avoid taxes through money laundering.
Since the funds were going abroad, Homeland Security might get involved as well. Again, while these people who naively fell for the bogus jobs will probably be let go, I doubt the experience of having to prove their innocence to the Feds will be a good one.
Also, unless they have kept good records of the amounts received, commissions and salary amounts deducted and receipts for what they forwarded abroad as well as being able to show that they made the correct estimated tax payments to the IRS when due on the income they received, they could still find themselves being liable for fines and back taxes to the IRS.
The Email
Below is the full text of the email I received from the scamers seeking to hire an agent to handle their U.S. business. Note the overall sloppiness of the grammar and the amateur nature of the email supposedly from a major British company. Note also the detailed description of how the business works.
One indication that this is a fraud is the instructions to the agent to deduct the amount for commission and salary from the funds they receive from customers. How many business do you know of where employees handle company funds and are told to just pay themselves out of these funds?
Text of Email Offering the Job
Congratulations to you,
I have been directed to bring to you in offer of work on line from Home/Temporarily and get paid weekly? We are glad to offer you for a job position at our company, G & Co. FABRICS. We need someone to work for
the company as a Representative/Bookkeeper in USA( and its ENVIRONS)and in EUROPE. This is in view of our not having an office recently in the USA(and its ENVIRONS). You don't need to have an Office,and this
certainly wont disturb any form of work you have going at the moment. Our integrated yarn and fabric manufacturing operations use state-of-the-art textile equipment from the world's leading suppliers. Order processing, production monitoring and process flow are seamlessly integrated through a company-wide computer network.
* The average monthly income is about 4000.00 USD.
* No form of investments from you.
* This job takes only 1-3 hours per day
About the job.
We have sales representatives all over the world to distribute our products. You know, that it's not easy to start a business in a new market (being the US). There are hundreds of competitors, close direct contacts between suppliers and customers and other difficulties, which impede our sales promotion. We have decided to deliver the products upfront,it's very risky but it should push up sales on 25 percent. Thus we need to get payments for our products as soon as it possible.
Unfortunately we are unable to open Bank Accounts in the United US without first registering the company name. Presently with the amount of Orders we have,we cannot put them on hold. For fear of losing the customers out rightly. Secondly we cannot cash these payments from the US soon enough,as international Checks take about 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*.Your task is to coordinate payments from customers and help us with the payment process. You are not involved in any sales. we make direct contact for sales of products. Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer (usually through FEDEX). The customer receives and checks the products. After this has been done the customer has to pay for the products. About 90 percent of our customers prefer to pay through Certified Checks and Money orders based on the amount involved. We have decided to open this new job position for solving this problem.
Your tasks are:
1. Receive payment from Customers
2. Cash Payment at your Bank
3. Deduct 10% which will be your percentage/pay on Payment processed
4. Forward balance after deduction of percentage/pay to any of the offices Payment is to be forwarded either by Money Gram or Western Union Money Transfer) or any Local Money transfers take barely hours, so it
will give us a possibility to get customer's payment almost immediately.
For example you've got 3000.00 USD, you take your income: $300.00 USD Send to us:2700.00 USD,First month you will have 15-20 transactions on 3000.00-4000.00 USD so you may calculate your income. For example 18 transactions on 3500.00 USD gives you $6300.00 USD Plus your basic monthly salary is 1000.00 USD Total: 7300.00 USD per month After establishing a close co-operation with us you'll be able to operate with larger orders and you'll be able to earn more. Our payments will be issued out in your name and you can have them cashed in your bank or other Cashing services. Deduct your weekly salary and forward the balance to the company via western union money transfer or money gramme money transfer We understand it is an unusual and incredible job position. This job takes only 3-7 hours per week. You'll have a lot of free time doing another job, you'll get good income and regular job. But this job is very challenging and you should understand it. We
are looking only for the worker who satisfies our requirements and will be an earnest assistant. We are glad to offer this job position to you. If you feel that you are a serious and earnest worker and you want to work for H & F FABRICS, kindly email us and let us know about what your interest is.
You con visit our web site through www.dadyshoping.com
Kindest Regards.
Peter daniel.
© 2007 Chuck Nugent
Comments
I'm a victim of job scam where payment processing 720$ a week,,give my scan drivers lisince and bank information I'm so need a job so a grab this I think a great opportunity which a found the job in job bank canada but in other side I have bad feeling about but ya I still tke the job and do my first task which someone send money email transfer which is goes to my bank account and ask me to withdraw 95% and send it to western union in person who in Russia it's almost 2000 Canadian dollar so I did it and congratulate me for the good job but at night I cannot sleep and worried and bad feeling so email him the " manager" that I quit I'm not doin it and just shred my personal info..but he don't stop so I went to my bank branch and ask them to close my account but then they investigate me about the money I cash out so I explain everything about the scam and the bank manger said its my fault,and responsible for the money ,,what gunna happened to me,I can't sleep and worried about my safety,security coz that scammers have my personal info and the bank ,I'm a victim
The Eurtrans job is a scam. They ask for your home address and phone number on the application. Next they send you a form called a contract with them asking you to fax a clear copy of your drivers license or a copy of your passport.Then they ask you digitally sign their contract at the bottom. The next step involves getting a bank acct.number so they can direct deposit your pay.They do not ask for your SSA number or offer a any tax forms. By this point they have all your personal info including your signature. Hmm can we all say ID theft? I went as far as the contract phase and stopped. At this point they have my name and address.
Hi Chuck, I'm in the same boat at Heather T. I was contacted by them as well. Their site is eurtrans.com maybe with your expertise you can figure it out. Their site is a little unprofessional, I dont have long distant to call their Poland #. I'm extremely nervous and I dont want to get into any scam or waste my time, when you register, there is nothing there. You just put in a user name & any password and you're in.. into the same site. I've done a very hard & Long search and cant find anything on them. I did a IP search and come to find out, they just created their site May 2012.... so that is a little fishy. I dunno.. soo nervous..
I have recently been offered a job by a company called EurTrans Ltd. The company was posted on careerbuilder, so I naturally assumed they were a legit company. The position offered was for a Quality Control Inspector that could be done at home. They e-mailed me over an employment agreement and asked that I fax the completed agreement over to them with a copy of my id. I was told that I would be testing out merchandise before it was released to stores for defects. I was never asked for any banking information, so I'm not sure if they are legit or not. They also never had me fill out a I-9 form or W2 so I'm really confused!
So should i go ahead and complete the mystery shopping assignment. I've had more than one company send me checks to do evaluations of western union. The other company sent me $1920 asking me to do basically the same thing except this time my cut was more and it was a bonus offered for getting it done quickly. I just want to be sure its legit thanks for your help...again
It's a mystery shopping company. Are they legitimate. And if its a scam which i think it is,what is the sca m part? How can i lose money by keeping theirs
I received a usps money order for $870. My instructions were to keep 100 dollars for myself and wire the rest through western union to another individual. Is this a scam and if so why 800 dollars? Why not 3 or 4 thousand. 800 seems like a small amount to scam somebody with. And what happens if i cash the money order and keep all the money? Will they find out? I feel i have to get even.
how people who loundry money can be pahished. is there any agency you can report to?
I know the major ones that needs to be avoided are the ones where you have to deposit money into your account and then pay back out, building things that really seem to have no purpose that requires you to purchase a "starter kit", or any opportunity that promises an exorbitant salary with minimal amount of work. But some of the ones out there seem actually legitimate.
This are some of the home program that is working out well for me:
http://www.mystery-shopping-pros.com/ = this is some extra money to me, makes me earn additional $60- 100 a week
http://www.elance.com =i got some projects here , the competition is a little stiff.
http://www.vworker.com formerly known as rentacoder = if you are very good with website, graphics and such this avery good site to recommend
PLEASE post and read this for everyones own good!
https://hubpages.com/money/BRENDA-MACMILLAN
thank you very much
Harveys & Co Clothing Limited is another company offering this scam on craigslist, and even in the washington post online. I fell for it, but luckily I realized what it was before
Excellent hub. Thanks!
If it's too good to be true, it IS!
Thanks for giving us the heads up to what types of scams our out there on the web. I am sure more of these types of things will go on due to the economic situation and people being out of work they will be vulnerable to these type of work from home schemes.
I too received an email. The company was ticketmaster and I thought it was all legit with an application form and contract. I should have done the research prior to sending them my shit. I am afraid that they have my name and address. Could they do something with that all the way from Russia?
thank you for the article ,
i have also come some of this type offers to my mail,
but i have not joined anyone till today ,
& i will not join anyone without verifying company.
I got duped. I I guess it's true what they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I received an email from thru CareerBuilder, from a Matchtech Healthcare Group LTD. From a Mrs. Valerie Taylor from London.
I have been out of work for 2 years, since my dad got sick. I found it a bit suspect but they sent me a contract that looks sooo legal.
Now I dont know what to do. I am scared half to death. Will I get in trouble?? Who do I report it to??
I feel so stupid, will the authorities beleive me??
I fell for this exact setup in London, being just 18, and a foreigner looking for some work. Did eventually realise that it was too easy and was aware of some serious flaws. I wasn't given a a job description, simply a trial period after which it was said that ill meet my employee..ye rright. Did make some cash before I decided to call it but had to move to have some pieace of mind. ONe last thing..scam the scammers..it has been done (careful though..)
I think I'll quit my day job and start laundering money. Just kidding! Excellent hub.
Most interesting revelation. Thanks for the research and warning. Does anyone know of anyone who were able to cash the checks or money orders and get to sham the shammer by keeping all the cash? What are the possible repercussions?
Great, great hub. It's so important to be aware of these things.
I got a very professional-looking email through CareerBuilder.com from a company calling themselves Norstrom Careers Inc. They said that they were an advertising agency based in Austria and that all they needed was my address so they could start sending me checks that I would then deposit.
They almost had me, embarrassingly enough. But they told me that there was a support team available to me, gave me an address and several names, and that they would give me a 1099 form at the end of the year! Sneaky, sneaky.
I just received this kind of email, but with some differences that many others have noticed. The company's name is somewhat different but the content remains relatively the same. Because I'm in Canada though, the one I received was based on expanding business to Canada. I find it so funny though, that if these people who want to run these scams, I had SO many numorous spelling mistakes and not to mention grammatical errors. I also wanted to thank how many people who have commented have posted emails to report these scams. I had no idea and now I have it so I too, have reported the email I received.
Hi Chuck,
Thank God I was able to see this site, I got several email that offer an irresistible but suspicous job, they have different format and email address. They ask me to open an account with Wellfargo and provide all bank information for them to transfer money as payment of the service which I found not relevant. My husband and I smart enough to think of something fishy about it and your right if they can send you money using your personal bank account why in the whole world that they can't do the payment directly to their vendors. It's funny that they try to make money out of sca, but thank God in searching google about the stated company and that's it I found your post. I really want to work home and help my husband but I definitely check suspicious offer specially the way they send the offer is not convincing. I may report it to scam@watchinternational.com for them to know that this is happening to many people who are un aware of such scam.
First offer is : Babysitting Job from ericmartin
this person even sent me a child picture
Second offer is : Babysitting Job from garrybrown
this person even sent me a child picture
note: but I noticed the format and the way he wrote the letter is almost the same
so I think that the person sending me email is the one person.
3rd Offer is: Bookkeeping Job - Larry Jefferson ( the same that in ur post )
4,000usd monthly offer salary and said that they will pay you in
weekly basis.
Please if anyone got similar email that offer an irresistible paying job, don't get hook into it , investigate and search about all the information and always consult a friend, family member and your spouse about it. And there is nothing in this world that offer such like that without any physical or transaction being done. No company will pay you without any service rendered. If they are willing to pay you a big amount of money prior to job it's 100% SCAM. BE CAUTIOUS ALWAYS.
CHONA THORNTON
Nice thing to keep people warned. Thanx for the warning. For me the scam came in two different ways.
1.I have been receiving info about my winning lotteries that I have no way to participate. They asked me to send cheque to cover initial expenses. I decided not to respond as I did not participate in any lottery. I receive at least a dozen of such letters in my junk mail.
2. Another scam I came across wasabout someone who was on her death-bed wanting to donate a huge sum in charity and wanted me to respond immediately to oversee the charity activities of course for a remuneration of 10%. This 10% was again very heavy. The wanted me to send $2000 to cover transhipment of a box containing the money in the custody of a bank in the UK. On my intimating them that I wanted to know more about the conditon of the ailing lady no reply was received. The continued with a number of mails to which I did not respond.
Please be watchful.
Recently I received a job offer for bookkiping which apperently came thru careebuilder. I replay to the email with nly my name and address and I got another email to fill an application which I didn't want to fill it. Two days latter I received $4,000.00 in money order with nothing else enclosed. At that time I emailed back to the person who sent me the original email asking for more informacion. The next day he replayed in kind of a Nasty Way demanding me to cash those money order and proceeded with his instruction, still offering me no information.
A friend recently received from Kiev (Ukraine) such an offer to collect moneys in Australia for a percentage, which was said to have come from Bandura sales!!! If anyone can sell one Bandura in Australia per 5 years, he/she's a champion.
I have just been duped by Vaughn Creath this week. I believed that this was a legitimate job opportunity. Sent him $5000.00 via two separate wires, then was told by my bank that the cashier's check that I had received was a fraud. I am out the $5000 and Creath does not respond - obviously. Wish I had checked this site first. Don't know how I'm going to make up for that $5,000.00.
I was wondering, what do you do when you get these letters saying that someone wants you to take the money you've inharrited, and later on the bank calls to confirm it and you've spoken to thiss person on the phone several times.
I was checking my e-mail today and received one from each of the companies you mention. I like how when you try to check whom they were e-mailing it to, it is not usually your own e-mail address, it is something stupid or obviously made up. However, I, too, was smart enough to look them up on Google and found your site - thanks a lot!!
Just received the same email signed by Mark Upson. No web page to visit in this email, however there is a phone number (country code 44). I will forward to scams@fraudwatchinternational.com
another website that i unknowingly signed up for and received a payment to my bank account is rbcexchange.com, which has now closed down i believe. when i realised the `company` was a laundering site i sent them an email telling them i was going to the police and they stopped mailing me for some reason.now i have the trouble of convincibng the police and my bank that i am not a crook.
These work from home offers really do appeal to those of us that would like to work at home. It is nice to know that there is others who don't fall for thes scams. The on I received was signed by Mark Upson.
I received the dadyshoping email scam today. The only difference was mine was signed by Vaughn Creath. The body of the email was the same with a few small variations. I am forwarding it to scams@fraudwatchinternational.com. I send all the scam emails I receive there. They are fairly successful in their efforts to close down these types of organizations.
The Job Offer scams really took flight and I can see how scammers become more and more sophisticated and advanced with their approach.
Visit http://www.cybertopcops.com/419-scams.php#jobscam for an example of an older version of exactly the same scam. Some offer a "so-called" basic salary and some do not.
If you look closely to this e-mail and the web site you will notice the following inconsistencies:
The e-mail is sent from a SmarterMail e-mail account and you need to reply to a Hong Kong based Yahoo! e-mail account. If they really own this domain and are serious about doing legitimate business, why don't they use a @dadyshoping.com e-mail address.The domain dadyshoping.com has no relevance to the company at all. A domain normally contains the name of the company or has a direct connection to the name of the company. There is no real connection between DadyShopping and Garvey & Co Clothing Limited.Take a closer look at the company logo, it is very badly edited and you can see it is the work of an amateur.The company name is Garvey & Co Clothing Limited but they speak of Harveys Limited in the content of the web site. Shows you how stupid these scammers really are, if you want to change the name, make sure you make the change consistentThe e-mail begins with G & Co. FABRICS and ends with H & F FABRICS. Seems like they can't make up their minds. Who would want to work for a mixed up company like that?
You con visit our web site... Don't you find the misspelling of "can" as "con" amusing? Con and visit our web site so that we can con you.
Chuck this is a great article, I'm linking to it from www.cybertopcops.com.
Excellent reference. I received the Garvey one signed by Peter Daniel. I searched on Snopes with no luck. I googled the "company" site and found you first. Thank you for the info! I wouldn't have signed up, but I wanted to know if and who I should report it to.
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