Online scammers target unemployed with fake job offers

Life

20 February 2013

Techniques used by fraudsters to make easy money off the back of natural disasters through donations to fake charities are now being used to target the unemployed, according to security firm Eset.

Elaborate e-mails offering homeworking jobs completing online transactions for fake companies are surfacing, showing

Most of these require the victim to pay some advance fee or provide some delicate personal data, such as bank account or credit card numbers.

The scam involves the victim either becoming an employee for a fake company; an ‘agent’ to speed up the processing of foreign exchange transactions in exchange for a commission; or to receive a loan.

On agreement they are sent an uncovered cheque or other counterfeit proof of payment to themselves. They are then expected to forward on their actual funds via Western Union.

By the time the victim get confirmation they didn’t actually receive anything from the scammers and that the cheque or other proof of payment is worthless, they have already parted with their own money via Western Union (whose transactions are untraceable).

"The golden rule ‘If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ should be applied rather vigorously to most, if not all, such e-mails," wrote Eset’s Urban Schrott. "The only goal of the cybercriminals is to make money. Any offers they make, any promises or good deals they offer, all serve their main purpose, to get to some of your money and make it theirs."

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