Job Vacancies in the Scamming Business

Gilbert’s Guide to Sending Money to Scammers

Blank Western Union and MoneyGram Receipts

Job Vacancies in the Scamming Business

There has been a recent rash of spam emails offering what at first glance seem to be attractive job offers. Gilbert was lucky enough to receive one himself recently. The email is reproduced in its entirety below:

From: The International Medical Corporation

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: You have some free time? Use it to make yourself wealthier!

Sent: Mon, 21 Mar 2023 20:50:37 -0500

You are full of energy and dedication? Then you are lucky to read this message! Our company is exactly what you have been looking for! The International Medical Corporation starts the recruitment for the position of the financial manager. Our company specialises in distribution of the medical equipment and its certification all around the world. We can offer you the minimum of working hours and really good wages.

You are required:

Have no problems with the authorities.
Have a bank account (or open a new one, in order to use it for our company’s needs).
Be free 2 or 3 hours a day.
Have a mobile phone.
Have an email.

One of the major advantages of the offered vacancy is that you do not need to have any special skills in any field of knowledge. The job of financial manager of our company consists in the following: you will be required to get the payments from our customers on your bank account and make the further money transfers via Western Union or MoneyGram services to our agents in one of our warehouses in any of the regional branches. Your wages will be a 6% amount from the whole sum of every transaction on your bank account that you deal with. All the related charges (Western Union or MoneyGram fees) are covered by our company.

We have to explain that we need your assistance in order to fasten the process of the delivery of the ordered equipment straight away to the customers and to minimise the period of the receipt of the fund for the orders. Having joined our command, you will not only earn good money, you will also help hundreds of people, in need of medical assistance, hundreds of people around the world who will get all the necessary medical equipment much quicker with your help!

Any questions are welcome on our email address: info@intmc.org.

We are grateful for your attention!

Your email has been forwarded by www.monster.co.uk at our request, because you or somebody else has subscribed for the delivery of the job offers in the internet.

We wish you good luck and happiness!

If this email is sent to you by mistake, the International Medical Corporation brings its apologies. Please just delete this message!

Work for two or three hours a day... no special skills required... earn good money... help hundreds of people in need of medical assistance... and all you have to do is to receive payments into your bank account and forward the money onto “agents” via Western Union or MoneyGram. it sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Well, of course, it is too good to be true. If you have read any of Gilbert’s scambusts, the duties and responsibilities of the job being advertised may sound rather familiar. This “job advertisement” has been sent out by a gang of scammers who are either on the lookout for unwitting accomplices to help them out in their scams, or who are on the lookout for people to defraud with forged cheques.

How does it work? Well, if you were to apply for the post of “Financial Manager”, the scammers would get their victims to transfer money into your bank account. You would then have to withdraw the money and forward it onto the scammers, in cash, via Western Union or MoneyGram. This is a wonderful setup from the scammers’ point of view: as soon as a victim realises that they have been scammed, the only concrete information they will have to give to the police is details of your bank account. You would be the one with the police knocking on your door, not the scammer.

Alternatively, the scammers would send you forged cheques to pay into your bank account and would ask you to forward the money onto them as cash. Soon after you had done this, your bank would discover that the cheques were forgeries, and you would lose the money that you had forwarded onto the scammers.

The job advertisement states that you must have “no problems with the authorities”. You can rest assured that if you were to apply for a job like this, “problems with the authorities” would follow soon afterwards.

Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

Having received another email offering a similar job – this time from a bogus company calling itself “StreamsJobs” – Gilbert decided to respond and see exactly what the scammers wanted him to do. The original email asked Gilbert to visit the www.streamsjobs.com website and register his details with the company. Gilbert did just that, entering his usual bogus details. Here’s what happened next:

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: NEED YOUR CONFIRMATION

Sent: Mon, 11 Apr 2023 01:30:06 -0700

Our company is in need of agents in your country, somebody that we can work with. All you will have to do is receive money from us to your bank account and send this money to another country using Western Union (www.westernunion.com), details we will give you later. We will pay you 10% of a sum that you will work with, the sum you will receive on your bank account, and you don’t pay Western Union fee, we do that, so you get pure 10%. OK, let’s talk about the job in detail:

You must check your email and your account every day, every morning from 8am to 1pm, every 30 minutes. Because you can receive an email from us.
After you receive money on your bank account, you go to the bank and get this money in cash (it will be £2,000 – £10,000 daily).
When you got money in cash you keep your 10% for yourself and the rest 90% you send to us via Western Union to our agent in our country, to the information that we will give you later, after you get your first money.
When you already sent the money to our agent via Western Union and got all the information about money transfer you go to www.streamsjobs.com, then you log into your account and fill in the form (sender’s name, receiver’s name, sender’s city, MTCN # etc) and just in case you can send all this information to our email: contact@streamsjobs.com.
After you done all this, hold on and wait within 24 hours until we transfer some more money to your bank account, and you do exactly the same again. So that’s all you have to do to earn money.
After you done this three times, we raise your salary to 5% more, so within a month your salary could raise up to 30% from sum.
We offer to you a good and high wages job and we hope we hope that you will work good and honestly.
If you DID NOT send our 90% of money and you cheated us for some reason, all your information goes to authorities (police) of your country/city and you will have to deal with them, you will have big problems. So we hope you will work honestly with us.
You work with us – we work with you, you help us – we help you.

!!!!PLEASE REPLY THIS EMAIL!!!!

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: I wait your answer soon possible

Sent: Mon, 11 Apr 2023 14:45:56 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

Thanks for agreeing to work with our company. You started working with us since you have registered. And you became one of our agents. We guarantee a high salary. But we have a little problem with your bank (Seeing as it doesn’t actually exist, I’m not surprised – Gilbert). We don’t have enough customers in your bank, so we can’t give you to do job all the time. You will be getting your money 4-5 times a month, because we don’t have enough customers. We want you to earn more money, around £4,000-£8,000 a month. For this job you will have to open a new account in the bank.

If you really want to start working with us, here are the banks that you can open an account at: Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Woolwich. If you open an account there, your salary will be £4,000 and more.

Our clients use those banks to work with us, because you don’t have to wait 24 hours or two days to process your money. So you will be getting your money immediately, 10% to 15% per every amount. If you really want to work with us and you are ready to open an account in one of those banks, send us an email as soon as possible, and give us your details that we need. We will be glad to hear from you that you want to work with us and earn big money.

You will be able to buy everything you want. We are waiting for an answer from you.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: I would like to accept your kind offer of a job

Sent: Thu, 14 Apr 2023 10:12:14

Dear Mr Lewis,

Thank you for the email which you sent me after I registered my details on your website, and for offering me the opportunity to work for you. I would like to accept your kind offer.

I apologise for the delay in getting back to you. I was away visiting my aunt who is very sick. I do hope that my late response is not a problem and that the offer of a job is still open.

The job you are offering sounds as if it will suit me very well: I lost my job bevelling edges last year after an unfortunate gardening accident, and have not been able to work since. However, I am sure that I will be able to cope with the job you have offered me, as it sounds as if there is very little physical activity involved.

Before we go any further, I have a few queries and I would appreciate it if you could answer them for me:

I am on Incapacity Benefit. Do you know if my earnings will affect this?
I presume your Personnel Department will sort out my Income Tax, National Insurance payments, etc. Do I need to provide them with any further details?
Do you offer any form of pension provision for your workforce?
You mentioned that I would need to open another bank account, with either Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds or Woolwich. Does it matter which one, or should I open an account with any of them? Barclays has a branch not too far away from me. Would that be acceptable?

I look forward to hearing back from you with answers to my queries. Finally, I would like to assure you that I will be a diligent worker and that I will not let you down.

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: I would like to accept your kind offer of a job

Sent: Fri, 15 Apr 2023 16:52:55 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

If you want to earn £250 pounds in a day to you it is necessary to open the account in HSBC bank. If you start to work with us we to you we guarantee steady earnings. You will receive 10% from each sum sent on your account. And to you we guarantee pension after three receptions of money by you. We to you we shall send the contract which you sign and will send us. We wait from you for the answer as soon as possible and bank details and we want to begin with you work.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: I would like to accept your kind offer of a job

Sent: Sun, 17 Apr 2023 13:35:57 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

You can open any account in the banks below:

Barclays.
HSBC.
Lloyds.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: I will open a new account with Barclays

Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2023 09:21:23

Dear Mr Lewis,

Thank you for your email. I am delighted to hear that I will be able to open an account with Barclays: they have a branch in the next village to me.

I am expecting a visit from the District Nurse later today: she is due to change the dressings on my buboes. I will go to the bank as soon as she has been and open an account. I will contact you as soon as I have done so.

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

PS. You mentioned that you would provide me with a pension. This is splendid news. However, I note that you did not answer my question regarding my Incapacity Benefit. Perhaps your Personnel Department is still looking into this. I would appreciate it if you could get back to me with an answer as soon as possible.

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: I will open a new account with Barclays

Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2023 01:42:52 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

As soon as you will open the new account send us the details as soon as possible and we with you shall start to work immediately. We wait from you email as soon as possible and we shall answer all your questions.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: Details of my new Barclays bank account

Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2023 15:39:59

Dear Mr Lewis,

I have just returned from the neighbouring village, where I opened a new bank account with Barclays as you instructed.

Here are the account details:

Bank Account Name: Gilbert Arnold Murray

Bank Account Number: 76240831

Sort Code: 20-53-76

Account Holding Bank: Barclays Bank PLC, 27 Muggins Road, Much Frottage, Lincolnshire, UK

I trust this is in order. Please get back to me as soon as you can and tell me how soon I can expect to start working with you. I am extremely keen to start as soon as possible. I give you my word that you will not be disappointed with my work.

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: The urgent answer from you

Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2023 08:14:41 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

Thanks for agreeing to work with our company. You started working with us since you have registered. And you became one of our agents. We guarantee a high salary. But we have a little problem with your bank. We don’t have enough customers in your bank, so we can’t give you to do job all the time. You will be getting your money 4-5 times a month, because we don’t have enough customers. We want you to earn more money, around £4,000-£8,000 a month. For this job you will have to open a new account in the bank.

If you really want to start working with us, here are the banks that you can open an account at: Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Woolwich. If you open an account there, your salary will be £4,000 and more.

You will be able to buy everything you want. We are waiting for an answer from you.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: You have confused me now

Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2023 16:35:51

Dear Mr Lewis,

Why have you just sent me an exact copy of an email you sent me on 11th April, telling me that you have a problem with my bank?

I have already done as you requested, and opened an account at my nearest branch of Barclays. Barclays is one of the largest banks in the UK, so I can’t imagine you would have a problem with them.

I sent you the details of my new Barclays bank account in my last email. Just in case you inadvertently deleted it, here are the details again:

Bank Account Name: Gilbert Arnold Murray

Bank Account Number: 76240831

Sort Code: 20-53-76

Account Holding Bank: Barclays Bank PLC, 27 Muggins Road, Much Frottage, Lincolnshire, UK

Please get back to me by return with details of when my new job will actually start.

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: You have confused me now

Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2023 08:37:59 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

We wanted to send not to you excuse that have sent you. Tomorrow we already start to work with you. And our clients tomorrow will send you on the new account of money.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: This is marvellous news: thank you!

Sent: Tue, 19 Apr 2023 17:31:38

Dear Mr Lewis,

This is marvellous news: thank you! I haven’t worked since my accident, and I had just about given up hope of finding a way to make a good honest living until you came along with your offer of a job. I really cannot thank you enough.

I can’t wait to start working for you properly and to start earning some money again.

So, what do I need to do next? Please advise.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: Details of my new Barclays bank account

Sent: Wed, 20 Apr 2023 01:14:59 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

Thanks for your reply.

Please send us the correct sort code: we wait from you for the answer as soon as possible and we begin work with you.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: I am terribly sorry for the mistake

Sent: Wed, 20 Apr 2023 10:03:25

Dear Mr Lewis,

I am terribly sorry for the mistake, Mr Lewis. Having checked my records, I have realised that I accidentally wrote down the wrong sort code: the sort code I gave you was for one of my savings accounts with Bartletts Bank. The correct sort code for my new Barclays account is 20-78-98. I have double checked my information, and although I accidentally gave you the sort code, I am happy to say that the account number I gave you is correct.

I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I feel such a fool, making a mistake like that on my first proper day of work. I do hope I haven’t jeopardised my chances of a long and fruitful career with you.

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: I am terribly sorry for the mistake

Sent: Wed, 20 Apr 2023 03:03:30 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

[11 - Sorry, our systems do not recognise your details. Please check them, re-enter and try again. If the problem persists, call us on 0845 600 2323 (outside the UK dial +44 2476 842063) quoting error code 11.]

Our clients cannot send you on the account of money and we cannot begin work with you. Call in bank and ask in bank correct your bank details and we shall start to work with you immediately.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: This is most confusing

Sent: Wed, 20 Apr 2023 11:28:17

Dear Mr Lewis,

This is most confusing. I’m sure I’ve given you the correct bank details. What are you doing to check the numbers? Whatever system you’re using, are you sure you’re entering the numbers in correctly? Pardon me for saying so, but I have noticed that your English isn’t exactly the best I’ve ever seen, and I am wondering whether your numeracy skills are at a similar level to your literacy skills.

Here’s a suggestion. Try it one more time. Make sure you get the numbers right this time. Let me know how you get on. If you still don’t have any luck, I’ll get onto my bank and see what the matter is.

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: This is most confusing

Sent: Wed, 20 Apr 2023 03:58:53 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

Bank Account Name: Gilbert Arnold Murray

Bank Account Number: 76240831

Sort Code: 20-78-98

Barclays Bank PLC

Correct?

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: Yes, correct

Sent: Wed, 20 Apr 2023 12:14:02

Dear Mr Lewis,

Yes, that’s absolutely correct. May I take it that you’ve managed to get it right at last and that we can start work?

Best regards,

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: I am terribly sorry for the mistake

Sent: Thu, 21 Apr 2023 12:58:52 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

Thank you for your registration at our web site and that you agreed to help and work with us. We began to work with you already and in 24 hours you will be able to earn your first money. We guarantee stable profit for you.

We also wanted to ask you if you can add us to your MSN messenger contact list if you have this program installed, if not you can always download this program from https://www.msn.com. You need to add us to your contact list after you installed it. You will need that to communicate with us, calling takes too much time. We will need this program so we can contact you or if you have any questions you can reach us also. Through MSN messenger you will be notified when money arrives at your account. Make sure to acquire MSN messenger as soon as you can for further communication. Our MSN account is: vitekscomb@hotmail.com.

Add us to your contact, and we will be able to contact you 24 hours per day.

We are waiting for you.

Best regards

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: What on earth is going on?

Sent: Fri, 22 Apr 2023 09:36:07

Dear Mr Lewis,

What on earth is going on? You told me that I would start to receive money into my new bank account, but up to now I have received absolutely nothing. What is more, all I get from you are confusing and conflicting emails, some of which don’t even seem to be aimed at me at all.

I must say, I am beginning to have second thoughts about this job of yours. I have never worked for such a shoddy business in all my life. And you still haven’t answered my question about my Incapacity Benefit. What is the matter with you?

If I don’t start earning some money from you pretty damn quick, I’m tempted to resign from your company and accept an alternative job offer I received today from some outfit calling itself the International Medical Corporation. They’re looking for Financial Managers, and I have to say, they seem a lot more professional than your two-bit outfit does.

It’s up to you, Mr Lewis. Either you start providing me with some proper work, or I’m going to hand in my notice. I’ve never been treated so shoddily in all my life.

Gilbert Murray

From: Eric Lewis

To: Gilbert Murray

Subject: Re: What on earth is going on?

Sent: Fri, 22 Apr 2023 12:54:29 -0700 (PDT)

Greetings!

Sorry for delay. We start work with you on Monday can to not worry. On Monday you receive the first money I to you I promise.

Best regards,

Eric Lewis

contact@streamsjobs.com

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: Where is this work you promised?

Sent: Tue, 26 Apr 2023 10:21:11

Mr Lewis,

You told me on Friday that I would start to receive money into my bank account yesterday. However, nothing happened.

What is going on? Where is this work you promised? I’ve never had a so-called “job” like this in my life. Is this a real job, or is it some kind of con?

Either you provide me with work immediately, or I resign. It’s up to you.

Gilbert Murray

From: Gilbert Murray

To: Eric Lewis

Subject: I resign

Sent: Thu, 28 Apr 2023 09:38:03

Mr Lewis,

That’s it. I’ve had enough of your broken promises. I resign.

I’ve just accepted a position as Financial Manager for the International Medical Corporation. I’m sure they’ll be able to provide me with a decent career, unlike your twopenny-halfpenny outfit.

I was willing to put my all into the job you offered me, but you have now lost the chance of employing a dedicated, devoted individual. This is your loss. I want nothing more to do with you.

Gilbert Murray