Do not reply to Smith Bola

vertrefadmin · January 30, 2006

I noticed a lot of spam emails to the resume section that reads like this:

FLIGHT RECRUITMENT INC
12 Works Road, Kent Drive
Lagos, Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION:
At FLIGHT RECRUITMENT INC. we specialize in engineering,aviation and managment career moves for professionals engaged in the concerned sectors.
Interestingly, most of our clients are actively looking for experienced individuals/expatriates capable of rendering expertise services in fields below:

a) Helicopter Pilot
Helicopter Engineer
c) Electrical Engineering
d) Electronics Engineering
e) Software Engineering
f) Computer Engineering

Induviduals with qualifications related to aviation are also welcome to apply.
Send your resume in Microsoft Word format to our company's email: intercor20@yahoo.com

Best regards

Smith Bola
Head Of Recruitment Services.

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS INDIVIDUAL! This is a scam that has been on other aviation websites including here at VR in the past. Let others know and do not go to Nigeria for a job with this person.

Most people have heard of the Nigerian 419 scams that offer to transfer large sums of money into your bank account so as people became weary of e-mails from Nigeria, the fraudsters have changed their base to Europe. We have been made aware of companies supposedly operating out of Switzerland and Liechtenstein offering similar scams.

Recent scams involve lucrative offers of employment in European, the Middle East or Nigeria with money demanded to be paid to an agency or travel agent for visa or travel costs. Never send money, credit card or bank account details to anyone to secure or apply for a job. Any reputable company or agency will absorb these costs themselves.

How the scams work

The simplest scams offer guarantees of employment within a fixed time period (say 30 days), for a fee. All these companies do is to distribute your CV/Resume to prospective employers, this is also known as CV or Resume “Blasting”. You pay money to have your details sent to employers who are hiring, but what the fraudsters do is SPAM hundreds or thousands of employers, industry websites and online magazines with your details. Some offer a money back guarantee as an incentive to use them but very few job seekers ever receive a refund. A Canadian company is current being investigated by authorities for carrying out and continuing to advertise such a scheme.

The more sophisticated scams advertise jobs with real companies and offer lucrative salaries and conditions with the fraudsters pretending to be recruitment agents. A bogus telephone interview may take place (they always call you) and after some time you are informed that the job is yours. To secure the job you are instructed to send money for your work visa or travel costs to the agent or a bogus travel agent who works on their behalf.No matter what the variation, they always involve the job seeker sending them or their agent money, credit card or bank account details.

Another scam involves bogus jobs being placed on legitimate Internet job boards. ExpatEngineer.net offer a free monthly posting to employers and recruiters. A fraudster recently placed a bogus job on ExpatEngineer.net, which was e-mail to 15,000 job seekers. Fortunately alarms were raised by one of their members and the job was quickly deleted. A number of jobs were also placed on another paid advertising Internet Job Board with the fraudsters using stolen credit cards to pay for the advertisements.

How to detect a scam

Firstly, any genuine employer or agency will not ask for money for visa processing or travel costs. They will either absorb the costs themselves or deduct from you salary once you start the job. You may be required to provide your own airfares, but you should do so through a travel agent you know and trust.

Secondly, Nearly all the scams start by receiving e-mail or answering a job advertisement by e-mail. Fraudsters use free e-mail or web mail accounts such as hotmail, yahoo, juno, excite etc. We deal with hundreds of genuine employers and agencies, and they all use their own domain name, not a free e-mail service.

Check a genuine e-mail address/domain name by extracting the text after the “@” sign, add “www.” as a prefix and test the address in your browser. If genuine it should show the web site of the company the person is supposed to belong to. Check for telephone and fax numbers and contact the company directly to ensure the person actually works for them.

Thirdly, ask for phone, fax and office address details of the agency. These can usually be checked out through international directory enquiries or the local chamber of commerce, if they are difficult to find or reluctant to give these details regard them with suspicious.

Fourthly, only consider working for International companies in Nigeria. Contact the head office and confirm the identity of the person you have been contacted by.

THE GREAT NIGERIAN 419 SCAM

The great Nigerian 419 scam (ironically named after section 4-1-9 of the Nigerian Penal Code which relates to fraudulent schemes) has been operating for many years and starts with a bulk e-mail, mail or bulk faxing of an identical letter to businessmen, professionals or job seekers. The letters vary but tend to have common themes such as: (1) There is always a sense of urgency. (2) You are required to travel to Nigeria or wire-transfer money (3) Non-English documents are presented, Nigerian officials are present and sometimes even actual Nigerian government buildings are used. (4) You are often asked for blank letterheads and bank account numbers. (5) You are asked to pay processing fees or bribes i.e. “The President of the Bank will not release the money unless you pay him a bribe.” (6) You are told to keep quiet about this to any authorities (7) A Nigerian residing in the US or the UK may act as an "intermediary" or "clearing house" to close the transaction (8) Often, someone claims to be of Nigerian royalty or fame, most lately "the son of the President of Nigeria"

The 419 scam is really a scam-within-a-scam: The Nigerians make you think that you are going to scam the Nigerian Government, the Central Bank of Nigeria, etc., in fact they are going to scam you out of what they are going to charge you to get in the scam, or what portion of the scam you are going to pay to make it work. If you pay the money up-front by wire-transfer or by mail, one of two things will happen: (1) you simply lose your money and will never see it again; or (2) and much more likely, within a couple of days you will get a phone call or letter from your contact telling you that something has gone wrong, and that to clear it up and release the funds you will have to send just a little more money. This latter scamming will go on literally for weeks and months, until you either run out of money or figure it out. If you actually go to Nigeria, it is the same scam. You will pay some money and wait. There will be a delay, and then a requirement that you pay additional money to clear up the delay, and then another delay and more money, and so forth and so on until (1) your money is exhausted, or (2) you leave the country, or (3) you are kidnapped or robbed for the rest of your money.