14 DAY TRIAL // People sending out CVs could fall victim to a money laundering scheme used by crooks to divert the trail of fraudulent activity from them.
The scam starts with an email that claims to be from a company looking for representatives to expand its coverage to other parts of the world, offering wages of up to $3,500 / €2,770 per month, depending on the job type, part-time or full-time.
By targeting individuals looking for employment opportunities, the crooks ensure an increased success rate, since these are the most likely to accept the job offer.
How the scheme works
The fake job consists in processing documents for a company specializing in book-keeping and business administration.
What the victim actually engages in is a fraudulent activity that enables the crooks to make use of illegally obtained funds by processing the payments using personal information of the unsuspecting “employee.”
The victims are used to accept what they believe to be client payments, deduct a specific percentage, probably as compensation for their services, and send the rest of the money to the crooks via a system that leaves no trace as far as the final recipient’s identity is concerned, Hoax-Slayer reports.
Most of the times, the crooks ask for cash wire transfers, which can be picked up under a false identity from a cash office. There are plenty of other money transfer services that can be used, prepaid cards being also known to be used by the crooks in different scams.
The false client payments come under the form of checks, direct bank deposits from other victims or international money orders. These are illicitly obtained funds that are soon discovered, and the dirty money leads to the victims who believe they were doing nothing wrong, just fulfilling the duties of their new “job.”
Other money laundering scams are floating around
Accepting the CV of someone looking for a job is not the only bait used by crooks to clean up their money. In another example, the victim was proposed an advertisement deal, which supposed applying an ad on their car and simply driving around as they would normally do to receive money for promoting a product or a service.
As much as $450 / €353 per week was offered for a task that only required following the daily driving routine.
In this case, the victim would receive a larger check than initially agreed on, as a first payment, allegedly by mistake. The crooks would then ask the victim to cash the fee they were promised and send the rest to their representatives, via wire transfer. Needless to say that, in the end, the bank traces the illegal money to the victim.