Cyber Scams: Job Board Scam and work-at-home offer by email

Job Board Scam

A 68-year-old woman in Pennsylvania, who asked that her name not be used because she is still being victimized, said she searched an online job board not long ago and received a "work-at-home" offer by email. The "job" was to cash checks that would be delivered by parcel post. She was to keep 10% of the money and return the rest. Skeptical, she took the first check to her bank, where a clerk promptly declared it a fake and confiscated it. After threatening to report the sender to police, the woman thought she had avoided trouble, but she hadn't.

"Suddenly I am getting phone calls from all over the country saying why did you send me these emails and checks? They are using my name and address. I have gotten calls from at least 30 or 35 people from all over the country, from California to Florida to Pennsylvania," she said.

Watching for Grammar

Identity thieves frequently post fake ads on job boards to ensnare victims, and they've become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit public-interest research group.

"It used to be you could pick them out by their bad grammar, but now it's much more difficult," she says. "You really have to be careful."

The Pennsylvania woman notified police and also contacted Identity Theft 911, a fraud-resolution company based in Scottsdale, Ariz., for help. The outfit, which provides the ID-theft resolution under contract with insurance companies, employers and credit unions, used credit monitoring and fraud alerts to try to prevent the incident from spiraling out of control.

Brian Lapidus, chief operating officer for the Fraud Solutions division of Kroll Inc., a company that also helps businesses and individuals resolve cases, said his company is fielding a growing number of calls from wary recipients of similar emails pitching too-good-to-be-true jobs, loans and sweepstakes offers. Even when advised of the risks, many respond anyway, Mr. Lapidus says.

"People want to believe that even in this economic climate, the cloud has a silver lining," he said.

Read the entire article:
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-bud...ck-in-Downturn

by M.P. McQueen
—Sarah E. Needleman contributed to this article.
Thursday, January 29, 2009