Online Job Scam: From the Victims’ Perspective: Sample UMAB contracts and email exchanges.

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The timeline has many examples of what the job ad looked like. Below are step by step examples from UMAB scam victims of how they were led through the process of this scam after responding to one of the fake ads.

I. Email Exchanges from two victims of the Macrocommerce Intersales version of the scam

A. Step One:

After replying to the job ad, an email similar to the one below was sent to victims. The following email is from the Macrocommerce Intersales version of the UMAB scam. The victim this was sent to lived in Maine at the time.

(Misspellings were not changed)

Dear sir,

Please let me to introduce myself, I am James Brown, sales representative of the Macrocommerce Intersales Company based in Berlin, Germany. Our company is looking to sign a Company / Foreign Agent Agreement in order to deposit their U.S sales founds into a company / individual US bank account. Our company agrees to deposit founds into a company / individual US bank account if the company/individual agrees to accept, 5 % of these founds as payment for services. The company /individual is then responsible for wiring the remaining 95% of the founds to one or more of the three designated local distributors. The service fees associated with wiring these founds will be deducted from the 95 % sent back to the company or the company’s designated local distributor.

In order for us as a company to deposit these funds into the U.S bank account we will be needing full info of the U.S bank account as:

1-ACCOUNT HOLDER’S NAME AND ADRESS

2-ACCOUNT HOLDER’S TELEPHONE NUMBER

3-BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER

4-ROUTING NUMBER

5-THE BANK ACCOUNT ISSUER(BANK WHERE THE U.S ACCOUNT IS OPENED)

6-BANK ADRESS

7-BANK TELEPHONE NUMBER

If you as a manager of a company or as an individual wish to sign a Company / Foreign Agent Agreement in the condition above mentioned please contactour department in order to send more information about the Foreign Agent Agreement papers work. We look forward to you partnership. Thank you for your time and understanding.

James Brown Sales Representative

Macrocommerce Intersales Company

Oranienburger Strasse 114

10 999 Berlin

Germany

0049/16092469119

B. Step Two: Request from Con Artists for Making Transfer of Funds

The following email was sent to a Texas-based victim of the Macrocommerce Intersales version of the UMAB scam. The email tells the victim how and where to transfer the money. This email is a good example of the kinds of things a con artist will request of a victim caught in a payment forwarding type of scam.

(Misspellings were not changed).

From: Foreign Agent <foreignagent@macrocommerce.org>
To: xxx
Subject: Re: Incoming wire
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:02:36 -0800 (PST) Dear sir,

As soon as the money clears cash out the money that you have recived ($9600) and go to a Western Union Office and send the money to our company distributors as follows:

Here are the names of our Company Distributors where you will wire the money to via Western Union Money Transfer.

PETER ANDERSON

Street: Lijnbaansgracht 163 Zip code: 1016 VX

City: Amsterdam

Country: Netherlands

RENY STEVENSON

Street:Oudezijds Armsteeg 12

Zip code:1012 GP

City: Amsterdam

Country: Netherlands

ERNANDO BECKER

Street:De Wittenkade 120

Zip code :1012 DW

City: Amsterdam

Country:Netherlands

From the $9600 you keep please $480 for you. The other $9120 please split them to the three Company Distributors, the fees for the western union are include to the $9120 ! After that please let us as soon as posible know the MTCN # of each transfer from each name of our Company Distributors !! I want you to send the money to Netherlands because we need to pay for a new headquarter space in Amsterdam.

Notice: Doesn’t matter what the western union says about not transfering a amount like more that 2000 us $, cause in the past some nigerian mafiosis ripp a lot of money. but we do all our busines through western union int about 150 000 US $ each week.

Hope to hear from you as soon as posible.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

II. Example of how the same job scam operates under different names

The following email came from a potential victim who replied to a job ad from Omega Inc. The contract that Omega Inc. used is exactly the same contract that Macrocommerce Intersales used, complete with misspellings and unique grammatical errors. The job ad itself was slightly different, but it had certain key similarities and the posting pattern was the same as the UMAB scam. The contract below is confirmation that the company name of Omega is related to the UMAB scam.

(Misspellings were not changed).

Dear sir,

Please let me to introduce myself, I am Helmud Luigi , sales representative of the OMEGA INC based in ROMA , ITALY. Our company is looking to sign a Company / Foreign Agent Agreement in order to deposit their U.S sales founds into a company / individual US bank account. Our company agrees to deposit founds into a company / individual US bank account if the company /individual agrees to accept, 5 % of these founds as payment for services. The company /individual is then responsible for wiring the remaining 95 % of the founds to one or more of the three designated local distributors. The service fees associated with wiring these founds will be deducted from the 95 % sent back to the company or the company’s designated local distributor.

In order for us as a company to deposit these funds into the U.S bank account we will be needing full info of the U.S bank account as:

1-ACCOUNT HOLDER’S NAME AND ADRESS

2-ACCOUNT HOLDER’S TELEPHONE NUMBER

3-BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER

4-ROUTING NUMBER

5-THE BANK ACCOUNT ISSUER(BANK WHERE THE U.S ACCOUNT IS OPENED)

6-BANK ADRESS

7-BANK TELEPHONE NUMBER

If you as a manager of a company or as an individual wish to sign a Company / Foreign Agent Agreement in the condition above mentioned please contactour department in order to send more information about the Foreign Agent Agreement papers work.

We look forward to you partnership.
Thank you for your time and understanding.Helmud Luigi Sales Representative
OMEGA INC
STAZIONE TERMINI GALLERIA CENTRALE BIN,
13/14 LATO VIA GIOLITTI
ROME
00185
ITALY
Tel: (39 ) 80060143
omega incitaly [omegaincitaly@yahoo.com]

 
Roadmap: A Year in the Life of an Online Job Scam – A Longitudinal Study:  Appendix A: From the Victims’ Perspective: Sample UMAB contracts and email exchanges.

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