Scammers, fraudsters, fishers offer jobs for the German residents - be extremely careful! We're urging extreme caution!
Recently, scammers have been particularly active in trying to deceive migrants and foreigners living in Germany and Europe, offering various job opportunities. They have posted hundreds of ads on online bulletin boards with tempting job offers. Under the falling economy conditions and in view of employment problems, these proposals keep on being extremely appealing to us. Yet, we're urging your extreme caution; some residents of Germany have been seriously affected by these scammers!
The deception comes down to the following: you are offered to be an intermediary between some company and their clients or partners. For example, you are offered to receive packages from online stores and send them to one of the CIS countries, with reference to the fact that stores in Germany and Europe do not send packages directly to Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and other countries. They promise to pay well for each parcel and everything looks very plausible.
However, scammers buy large amounts of goods in stores, paying with stolen credit cards or in some other way suitable for them. The deceived people do not suspect anything, sending parcels, and then the expensive things turn out to have been bought in their name with stolen credit cards; moreover, the scammers appear to have already forwarded these goods to nobody knows who.
They also offer another type of work: you have to act as an intermediary in transferring money from Germany to other countries. The fraudsters explain this by saying that when making international transfers, their company loses a lot of money for the transfer, so they suggest that their "alleged" clients will transfer money to your bank account, and you will send it via Western Union or in other ways to these companies.
Scammers introduce themselves as transport or trading companies. In fact, they will transfer money stolen from other accounts or credit cards to your account, for you to transfer it to their account.
So, if you are looking for a job, mind the following in order to avoid becoming a victim of scammers:
- See if the job offers you the opportunity to become an intermediary in illegal transactions: sending goods, money, etc.
- Do not send copies of personal documents to the prospective employer, as this is a form of identity theft, allowing to get loans on your behalf or make other machinations possible.
- If the advertiser indicates only their email address or, upon request, only their mobile phone number (check by code, if it is a mobile phone number or a landline one), do not trust such ads. Legitimate firms provide phone numbers, addresses, etc., which can be checked in phone books, companies directories, etc.
- Check the data provided by the ad contributor, call the company that has offered the job, ask questions, ask to send the contract form, company details.
- Keep all the emails and information sent to you from the alleged "employer".
If you are aware of other cases of fraud or you can share some good tips on this subject, let us know by e-mail, so that we can enter the information about it on this page.
Related links:
- How to detect fraud and deception in job advertisements, employer reviews
- How to protect yourself from forced labour, sexual slavery, and exploitation when looking for a job
