14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve told you on numerous occasions to be on the lookout for too-good-to-be-true job offers since in many cases they represent a front for some shady activity. Now, we bring you another example of such an offer.
This time, potential victims are convinced to take a job as an assistant by a 51-year-old pharmacist who’s allegedly working with UNICEF and the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.
For a $500 (400 EUR) weekly salary, the “assistant” must run errands, collect commissions, book appointments, handle finances, receiving memos from associates, and “process payables and purchase orders for submission.”
“I want us to get a head start with things as soon as possible. I do have a pile up of work and a number of unattended chores which you can immediately assist me with and I hope we can meet up with the workload eventually,” the shady emails read.
So far this seems to be a decent job offer that doesn’t involve anything suspicious (except for the fact that it came out of the blue from someone you don’t know). However, the last part reveals the actual “activity” that the employee must perform.
“You will receive some funds from one of my Clients that needs to get his monthly medication. The funds will be in form of certified Cashier check, it will be sent over to you by FedEx. You will make some arrangements by getting the drugs to him.”
Basically, this means that Dr. Jean McGowan is actually a fraudster (or even an entire criminal ring) and he needs you to launder the money he makes through who-knows-what shady methods.
As Brett Christensen of Hoax Slayer highlights, such schemes don’t just involve money transfers. The packages received by mail usually contain items purchased with stolen credit cards or stolen money, this being a way in which the crooks ensure that the police can’t trace anything back to them.