Internet Fraud Warning
Do Not Pay Any Fees As A Result Of An Offer Made By Email
Veggies Catering Campaign has been victim of Identity Theft leading to an employment scam via a fake email job offer.
The real victims of the fraud are people from overseas who may be conned into paying fees to follow up a fake job offer from Veggies.
The original scam email pretends to come from Veggies, but is actually sent by daystarcommunication.star@gmail.com . This has already been identified as a fake address by Yahoo Answers, where you can read more about this kind of scam. Their advice is to “always be wary of any unsolicited approaches from strangers that offer you jobs”.
The recipient of the email believes that they have been offered a position as an General Accountant Staff, at a salary of £4,500 per month (this is actually 10 times what our actual co-op members receive!)
As well as being asked to sign and return a copy of an attached contract of employment, they are required to pay approx £350 for Home Office “work permit and entrance clearance fees”, with 24 hours. We have yet to find out the method by which the payment should be made. No doubt after 24 hours the bank account will have been emptied and the fraudsters moved to their next target.
We are currently (Jan’13) receiving emails and calls to our landline and mobile number from the United Arab Emirates, Kerala (south-west India) and Bulacan in the the Philippines. We have even received back signed copies of the supposed contract. We greatly regret that people are being targeted and may already have been fooled into paying fees as a result of this heartless scam.
Do Not Pay Any Fees As A Result Of An Offer Made By Email
This scam has been reported to the Action Fraud helpline, who are keen to hear from anyone who has been a victim of this fraud.
Read more and contact Action Fraud at http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/fraud-az-online-fraud. If you believe you are a victim of this particular fraud quote the reference NFRC130100135761
We have also reported the scam to Trading Standards, with the reference AB10968088
Scam tracked to -a- source
29Jan’13
From discussions with respondents & potential victims, we have found that they have had contact with the scammers via the address careers@veggies.org.uk . This address is not us – you will notice that the (dot).uk part is missing from the address – we are veggies.org.uk.
A google search shows that this address is being used to post the fake job advert on various job advert bulletin boards. It is to this address that people apply and fill out a detailed interview questionnaire. The scammers then use the personal info gleaned to mock up a genuine looking contract that appears to come from us. By this process they build up confidence for the victims to believe that they should pay the £350 ‘border fees.’
The veggies.org domain is registered to/by http://freeola.com/. They seem to have issued the careers@veggies.org to the scammers. We hope that by drawing this to their attention at http://freeola.com/support/ (0871 210 9977 / 01376 556080) they may act to stop the scam.
This is the email that people are receiving:
Dear Applicant:
On behalf of Veggies Catering Campaign (Nottingham) Limited it is with a great sense of pleasure that I write this to you. Our company has agreed to employ you. Just to remind you, you had earlier sent in a job application for the post of an General Accountant Staff after which you answer our job Online Interview and your credential submitted, at the end of all the screening, you emerged as one of the best applicants. [our emphasis]
In the meantime, we have sent you all the guidelines, terms and conditions of the employment. You are expected to resume work immediately without any delay. It is the fervent hope of the board and the management that you will justify the confidence reposed in you.
In order for us to move ahead in our final selection process, could you please print and complete the enclosed attached Employment Contract Agreement by filling your full name and indicate your signature on it for reference purpose and also signing at the attached file only if you agreed with its terms and condition herein,and return them back to me via neat and clear email scanning as attachment file back within the next 24 hours from the date of this letter? Employment Contract agreement that arrived with us after the dead line will be rejected automatically and without mitigation.
After agreed with the terms and conditions in the Employment Contract Agreement by filling your full name and indicate your signature on it, these should be returned with a neat scanned copy of your School Certificates corresponding with your name. (e.g. Secondary School Certificate (SSC), Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC), BBA/B.Sc/B.Com/BA/B.A or any type of combination of training certificate with your Two Resent Passport photograph in other for us to issue you your Appointment Letter and Employer Sponsorship License for the immediate processing of all your entire travelling documents from the UK BA Home office.
Employment Contract Agreement that is submitted without Two Resent Passport photograph Secondary School Certificate (SSC), Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC), BBA/B.Sc/B.Com/BA/B.A or any type of combination of training will be rejected automatically and cannot be used for considering employment with our firm.
You will be contacted after the submission of your signed Employment Contract Agreement letter with Sponsorship Letter and your Appointment Offer letter for the immediate processing of all your entire travelling documents in due time.
For your information, you have only 24 hours to return back your Employment Contract Agreement letter from the date of this letter, failure to submit at the stipulated time given by the management, may have your offer revoked and cancelled.
Find the attached file, download it, print it out, fill the space provided and send it back to us via email after accepting with its terms and condition herein.
I wish you good luck and a success in your career.
Thank you, again, for your interest in our company. We do appreciate the time you invested in this application.
Best Regards,
Mr. David Otieno,
Human Resource Manager(HRM),
Veggies Catering Campaign (Nottingham) Limited,
Website: .http://www.veggies.org.uk
Footnotes
Whenever we receive emails that seem to good to be true, which are unexpected or perhaps badly written, we do a google search for a key phrase from the message. We often find that search results lead us to information posted at the www.hoax-slayer.com/ website.
From our experiences we have also published advice for identifying spam on our Spamish Inquisition page.
A clause in the fake Employment Letter has mistakenly retained the name of chocoholic Ltd, presumably a previous victim of the same scam.