14 DAY TRIAL // Avira experts have recently come across an interesting spam campaign. Unlike others, this one doesn’t advertise pharmaceutical products, cheap luxury watches, or free gift cards, but a job offer that seems hard to refuse.
As expected, the fraudsters don’t just come up to you and say “Would you like to be our money mule and launder money for us?”
Instead, they’ve designed a legitimate-looking and attractive job offer for a position such as “administrator in customer care”, “working with the free schedule”, “work with finance”, “manager customer service”, “working with the free schedule”, “finance manager” or “working with accounts.”
“Large American company which engaged in IT development and investment, looking for representatives in Europe to cooperate with international holdings and distribution of investment in IT. Since international bank transfers take a lot of time company needs staff to handle the funds for the company, it is assumed either in part time or full time,” reads the offer.
For a €4,000 ($4,900) paycheck per month, the employee needs to have elementary knowledge of the banking system and money transfer systems, the ability to accept payments in his/her own bank account, the ability to check email at least once a day, and the ability to process payments in a short amount of time.
Those interested are required to send an email containing their name, age, contact phone number and contact email address.
In a weak attempt to avoid spam filters, the crooks list de email address as [email protected].
Remember, these jobs may not necessarily be scams and you might even end up being paid for your “services.” However, money laundering is illegal and in most cases it’s the money mules that first get arrested and held responsible when these criminal rings are dismantled.
If you’re looking for a legitimate online job, here’s an advisory on how to avoid fake work-from-home offers.