Recently, I have seen a surge in spam email advertising an "agent" or "representative" for a company to collect money on its behalf and keep a percentage. A friend's daughter received the following email.
Dear Pamela [not her real name] I'm Linda Wilson, Manager of Royal Capital LTD company. On site Monster.com i have found your resume and want to offer you the vacancy of "PayPal Account Manager". Job description: The major duty of the PayPal Account Manager is to process payments between our clients and our company via PayPal system. You will get 15 percent per transfer. Salary: 500$-3500$ per month. Benefits of this vacancy:
- Flexible work schedule, work 3-5 hours per week.
- Possibility of your career rising.
- Home-based.
- Ability to take unlimited vacation (without guaranteed salary).
Minimal requirements:
- You must have PayPal account with Verified bank account.
- At least 18 years old.
- Internet and Email skills.
If you need more information click here (http://royal-capital-ltd.biz/vacancies.php). If you want to apply for this job please fill the form (http://royal-capital-ltd.biz/get_job.php) If you’ve got some questions about this vacancy F.A.Q. (http://royal-capital-ltd.biz/faq.php) and can’t find the answer to them address to our support (http://royal-capital-ltd.biz/contact.php) . And we are sure to help you Best regards --- Linda Wilson manager@royal-capital-ltd.biz
It seems that these fraudsters are not the ordinary garden variety of advance fee fraud. They have gone through the trouble of setting up an elaborate web site which advertises the position Paypal account manager. The site is registered through a proxy in New Zealand (privacyprotect.org), and resolves to an IP address in Malaysia.The site claims they help people in countries that do not have Paypal:
Nowadays the world trade develops extremely fast and various international payment systems. They become more and more popular. Billions of people buy and sell something every minute. But unfortunately not all of them have ability to use PayPal services. PayPal payments is available not in all countries.We help people to process PayPal payments. Our main task is to help people from small countries (such as Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Ukraine, Philippines, Slovenia, Russia, Croatia) in receiving funds via PayPal. Our main office is located in Estonia, Kohta-Larve, Sqpruse 40a-1. And at the same time we increase number of our offices in other countries. At present time there are our offices in Latvia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia and Slovenia.
Incidentally, these are also countries with lax laws or corruption that makes prosecution of fraud difficult or impossible.They even have a documents section with a PDF employment agreement, and company registration.My guess is that this is a distributed money laundering scheme. Other hackers fool people into giving their Paypal account information via phishing or key loggers. If they transfer the money into one account, the activity will be suspicious. However, if they convince 1,000 innocent people to play middlemen, then it is less likely to be detected.
Comments
Anonymous (not verified)
Estonia, Wouldn't believe it
Thu, 2009/12/03 - 16:39Yea, Estonians are brilliant IT geniuses and they are a world leader in Software Development... But take into account the Cyber attacks from Russia on Estonian Cyber Defense outposts last year. A large number of the Russian speaking minority reside in Estonia and receive education from Estonian Technology Institutes, which tend to be the best in the region.
I've lived in Estonia, and I know a number of IT nerds who are Estonian. Although I'll admit they are very smart at what they do; ethically, any normal moralistic Estonian isn't likely to do this.
The majority of them are lazy and if they were to steal something, they wouldn't likely put this much effort into it. A normal Estonian guy may steal his neighbor's TV because he doesn't like them, but usually gets caught because he leaves outside (too lazy to bring it inside). This is a common joke there, but the point of it, is people in this small country of less than 1 million ethnic Estonians within a small society wouldn't be dumb enough to do something of this magnitude. It's easy to investigate, easy to catch if it really is happening in Estonia, so my doubts in this are very high.
No offense to the Russians living in Estonia, but a generalization of Russian Ethics in business usually don't meet eye to eye with Western ethical standards.
Say for example, you make a business deal with a Russian Vodka Company and you live in Finland for Example. You order a crate of 20 bottles, but once they arrive you receive your shipment. But the quantity of it is 19. It comes as no surprise that one of the bottles broke during transit, yet you anybody smart enough would know that it likely was stolen. Just be sure to order 21 if you really want 20.
I hate generalizing, but as I said before, I doubt there is an Estonian behind this grand scheme.
They will get caught if they are, unless they are really sly...
Anonymous (not verified)
I fell for it :(
Mon, 2009/12/07 - 11:30This is really embarrassing. I never fall for stuff like this... until now. Ugh... They are preying on our economic situation. We are hard up for extra money because we can't get jobs, etc. The lady contacted me through a job site so I guess that's why I fell for it. I just feel stupid. Anyway, I immediately changed my PayPal password and email address. I sent her an email saying "I reported this scam to the police, do not send me any money or they will come after you." Just to keep them from sending me money. I hope it works. Anyway, I feel for everyone who has fallen for this. These are rough times but darnit we have to keep smart about this stuff. I'll never fall for it again I swear! lol
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