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dalepetrie's avatar

So, what's the scam?

Asked by dalepetrie (18024points) April 1st, 2009

OK, we’re all familiar with email scams. I have Gmail and I don’t even see 99% of the scams that are emailed to me. But I’m looking for work now, and I recently signed up on a job board and am regretting it, because I get TONS of spam now. Or at least, I’m ASSUMING it’s spam. But what strikes me is, I can’t tell what the scam is, maybe you’ve seen something similar and can enlighten me.

Basically, I’ve gotten about 4 of these in the last 24 hours. The first one I got said, “your resume was successfully reviewed and presently being reviewed on job wwww.Thejobplanet.com”, which right there you know it’s spam. Here’s the next one I got, “Will like to inform you that the Hiring Department of the company has reviewed your resume and we believe you’re capable for this job and you have the right to an interview…” What both of these told me, which leaves me wondering “what’s the angle”, is that they say they want me to interview online via Yahoo IM, just set up an account and message this person. They all say they’re part time, work at home jobs, and they pay $25, $50, even $60/hr, for DATA ENTRY!

Here’s what one says about the job and how you are paid, “all your assignments would be forwarded to you and submitted back by either fax, regular mail, email, phone or IM (instant messaging).
All activities and corresponding time are to be recorded in excel
spreadsheet. Thats how we access your work and process your pay. So, it doesn’t seem like those ones where they say “we’re going to forward you a check for $950 and you keep $150 and send us the rest…” I got that one too this morning, but this one says they’re just tracking your hours.

And of course, the “to” field on the email always lists someone else’s name as it’s clearly something sent to a mailing list that they cull from Jobplanet (word of advice, don’t post your info here, I’ve gotten a dozen junk mails slip through gmail’s filter in 24 hours, it’s unprecendented!) I got another one, this one purports to be from a bona fide company I’ve actually heard of, though see if you can spot why I don’t think it’s legit, “I will like to inform you that the Hiring
Department of the company Tiger Direct has review your resume and you have the right to an
interview with the hiring manager on which you will have to mail back to this mail box in
other to get a response to you mail
for the job details and (tdirecthiringmanager@yahoo.com) for the
interview mail..” This one then repeats the same thing the other said, but goes further, even encouraging me to cheat the IRS, “all your assignments
would be forwarded to you
and submitted back by either fax, regular mail and
email.
All activities and corresponding time are to be
recorded in excel
spreadsheet. That is how we access your work
and process your pay
There is no
payment required for getting started.
All expenses are
handled by the company.
You are to take out taxes. The company pay’s
you and it’s on you
whether or not you want to claim.

Only thing I can figure is either somehow by virtue of them being in an IM chat session with you, they are able to get into your computer and access your data, or, perhaps that’s window dressing, they convince you it’s a real job in the IM session, no money or anything from you, but like any real job you have to fill out an I-9, and then they have your SSN and steal your identity?

Anyone know what this scam is? Just curious.

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