Jobs Scam: GBN, Wants a 'virtual assistant'

Job and Recruiting Scams:
GBN, the internet
Coleman GARRETSON

Have you received an email from Coleman GARRETSON of "GBN" in the internet (claiming to be "one of the leading internet corporation concerning with auction arena delivering of top brands" offering you a job as a "part-timed or full-timed position as Virtual Assistant"? 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.

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:

Sent from a scammer using the following name and email address (there could be many others used):

Coleman GARRETSON, edwardsxivyz@usa.com

GBN is one of the leading internet corporation concerning with auction arena delivering of top brands. We effectively compete in today's economy because of flexible pricing policy.

We have read your resume and would like to lay out the specifics of our offer.

GBN offers you part-timed or full-timed position as Virtual Assistant.

You will work online at home.

Salary: you will be paid base salary plus commission!

This job is a good way to get extra money by sitting at home.

You don't need to possess specific knowledge,  no upfront fees required, it's sutible and comfortable work for everyone!

Please respond us in this Email: Monica.Williams.jobs@gmail.com  , if you are interested.

Thank You.

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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

• multilevel marketing - Primamerica
• 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.