Scams target job seekers

From the LA Times | Jan 31, 2010

Desperation may lead the unemployed to overlook warning signs when evaluating offers, opening themselves to con artists who are constantly updating their tactics. Above, a job fair in Miami draws an overflow crowd. (Alan Diaz / Associated Press / January 26, 2010)

Kathy M. Kristof

Victims are overpaid with phony checks and send real money back to crooks as refunds.

By Kathy M. Kristof

Personal Finance

The e-mail said it came from CareerBuilder and offered a job
opportunity as a "trading assistant," which it described as an easy
part-time job with "considerable" compensation.

There's
just one hitch: It was not an e-mail from CareerBuilder.com, the No. 1
online job website partly owned by Tribune Co., owner of the Los
Angeles Times, and it was not a job. It was part of a cynical scam
that's becoming widespread in the waning days of the recession. This
scam is just part of an evolving cacophony of employment frauds that
prey on the millions of Americans who are out of work.

In the
early days of the recession, con artists capitalized on the rising
unemployment rate by launching schemes that promised jobs but required
consumers to pay for "equipment" or "training" before they could start
work, said Alison Southwick, a spokeswoman for the Better Business
Bureau in Washington. You paid the fees and got the equipment or
training, but the work never seemed to materialize.

A similar
con offered work, but told "potential employees" that they had to
submit to a credit check first, Southwick added. The "employer"
provided a link, where the consumers plugged in their information. The
victims didn't find out until they got their credit card bill that the
site didn't just check their credit, it signed them up for a credit
monitoring service that charged them every month.

But as the recession has dragged on, the long-term unemployed have run short of cash to feed the con artists.

"People
are pretty strapped right now," said Susan Grant, director of consumer
protection for the Consumer Federation of America. "If you were just
doing the old 'Send me money for a job' con, even if people were
convinced that it was a good idea, the scam wouldn't work because they
probably don't have the money to send you."

Consequently, the
con of the hour is one that purports to send you money -- lots of it.
Now that you're feeling flush, they ask you to send them some money
back.

With the new "trading assistant" job, for instance, the
applicant is told that the position will involve "receiving payment
from customers and making further payments to our main office or one of
our regional affiliate exchangers, depending on the customer's
location."

The job pays by commission, according to the e-mail.
If you get a check worth $1,500, for instance, you're supposed to keep
$150 and reimburse the company for the rest.

What the scheme
really does, however, is clean out your bank account by sending you
counterfeit checks. These checks, which are often skillfully faked,
appear to clear because banking rules demand that financial
institutions give consumers access to their deposited funds in less
than five days.

That bank regulation is generally a good
thing, says Grant, because most checks are good and consumers shouldn't
be left waiting for access to their money. But it provides con artists
who know how to work the system with time to take you for a costly ride.

That's
because few consumers realize that a counterfeit check can be returned
weeks after it supposedly cleared. At that point the bank has the right
to deduct the money from your account. If you don't have enough in your
account, the bank can send debt collectors after you.

How can
you be held responsible for the counterfeiter's bad check? You're not.
You're held responsible for the good check that you wrote on your own
account to the criminal. The fact that your check was written to
"reimburse" the criminal is your problem, not the bank's.

One
young victim, for instance, is now paying $250 a month to his bank
after agreeing to clear checks for what he thought was a foreign
finance company, Grant said. He got taken for $6,000.

"He had absolutely no inkling that this was a scam," said Grant. "It was really tragic."

A
retiree looking for part-time work got conned by a company that claimed
to be a British art gallery that had U.S. clients but no domestic bank
account, she added.

"The permutations of this scam are endless," Grant said. "It is definitely the hot thing in the market right now."

The con artists often use the names of real companies, and even city agencies, on their checks to make them appear legitimate.


They also make up clever stories to support the con. The most common of
these is that the hiring company is in the business of "mystery
shopping." They say they are hiring the consumer to check out a store
or the services of a wire transfer company. The bogus employer will
send a check to supposedly allow the victim to buy goods from the
retailer, or have the funds available to wire.

Some companies
do legitimately hire mystery shoppers, according to the Mystery
Shoppers Providers Assn., their national trade group. However, these
companies rarely have you buy anything, they do not send payment in
advance, and they pay only nominal amounts -- between $8 and $20 -- for
mystery shopping services.

If you get a check for $2,000 in
advance of a mystery shopping job or are promised hundreds of dollars
to evaluate a retailer, you're being scammed, the trade group says. You
can't even trust the mystery shopper association's logo that some cons
brazenly use in their pitch. The association issued a warning in
October after receiving a rash of complaints from consumers who were
duped by crooks who claimed they were affiliated with the trade group.

Other
twists on the same scam: An out-of-town renter wants to put a deposit
on the apartment you have for rent, but sends a second-party check for
many times the amount due and asks you to refund the difference "when
the check clears." Or someone offers to buy your car, boat or dog
that's advertised for sale, but also needs to pay with a check for more
than the owed amount. The only common theme is the crook will pay more
than what's due and ask you to refund the rest.

"Nobody sends
you money for nothing, except maybe your grandmother," said Ed
Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest
Research Group. "If somebody sends you money and wants a refund for
part of it, ask yourself if you're sure this check is good. Do I want
to take a chance and risk everything?"

kathykristof24@gmail.com