I've Tried That - We lose money so you don't have to!

Never heard of it, you say? Maybe you haven’t placed your resumes at enough online job sites. There is no Wescom Group. It’s some bottom feeder trying to scam you.

I’ve Tried That reader, Teresa, got close enough to smell them:

Dear Teresa,
Let me introduce myself, my name is Angie Davis and I represent Wescom Group Company.

I found your resume at hotjobs.com and it seems to me that you meet all our requirements!

Our company is well-known not only in the USA, but all over the world!
We deal mainly with financial services for buyers and sellers at online auctions around the globe (closed commercial auctions (stock sales, business sales etc.) where the number of buyers is limited, as well as with ebay.com, amazon.com and yahoo.com – well-known public online auctions.

Working schedule is flexible. You would have to work about 2-3 hours a day, depending on the amount of transactions.
NOTE: Internet and e-mail required.
There’s no entrance or any other fees. The company covers all fees related to hire process.

Firstly you should hold a trial period (1 month). During this time you will get training, receive online support and of course get paid for it.
NOTE: During the trial period, personnel supervisor can recommend termination.

Your wage during trial period is about $2,300 per month plus 8% commission from each transaction. Total income, with the current volume of clients, will be about $4,500 per month. After the trial period, base salary will be $3,000 per month, plus 8% commission.

Hope you’ll find interest in this part-time position. Please feel free to ask me any questions at wescom.job.hr@gmail.com (fill in the form below and attach to your message).

What is the first thing that tips you off that this is not a genuine job offer? The grammatical errors? The promise of between $2,300 and $4,500 per month working 2-3 hours per day?

No.

The first hint of a problem is in the second sentence. “I found your resume at hotjobs.com and it seems to me that you meet all our requirements!” If an employer—who you did not contact—contacts you and says you’re just right for the position, RAISE SHIELDS. (For you non-Star Trek nerds, that means put up all your defenses cuz all hell is about to break loose.) Or if you prefer, pull on the hip waders. Employers don’t do that. Not without an interview. Not if you didn’t call them first. They don’t have time to sift through hundreds of thousands of resumes at monster.com in the hopes of finding the perfect employee.

Also, note that the email doesn’t say what you’ll be doing. What, are you supposed to guess? Of course, they thing you’re desperate. They want you to think, “I would sniff armpits for $4,500 per month plus commission.”

And if that isn’t a dead giveaway, check out “Angie Davis’s” email address: wescom.job.hr@gmail.com. She wants you to believe that an internationally known company does not have its own domain name and so uses free Gmail. I don’t think so. It should be something like Angie.Davis@wescomgroup.com.

It’s a Fake Check/Money Laundering Scam

If you sign up with Wescom Group, you will soon receive a check in the mail. They’ll ask you to cash it, keep 8% for your commission, then send the rest via Western Union to a location they’ll specify. The check will look legitimate. Your bank teller might even tell you it’s good. But it will bounce, maybe months from now, and you’ll be left owing the bank the face value of the check AND could be charged with a crime.

For a full description of the scam and to see some really impressive detective work concerning “Wescom,” visit Bob Bear. (Not kidding. That’s the name.)

Search Smart

By all means, keep hitting those job sites. Just put on your most skeptical glasses when you read emails that come from them. Employers don’t chase you. You chase them. That’s the way it always worked. That way and not some other way. If someone is chasing you, what they have to offer is not a job.