Scam Warning On Online Job Offers
The Age
Friday June 4, 2004
The nation's financial watchdog has warned people to ignore emails and websites that offer job seekers ``work from home" opportunities where they are asked to filter money through their own bank accounts in return for commissions as high as 15 per cent.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's director of consumer communications, Michael Dunn, said a number of websites - some of them online employment sites, others displaying bank logos prominently and illegitimately - were claiming to offer people the chance to make money by funnelling cash through their accounts.
Dr Dunn said ASIC had received complaints about the websites and emails but so far no reports of people actually losing money through the apparent scams, which he likened to the well-known and long-running Nigerian rip-off.
In the Nigerian scam, people are asked to provide their financial details, which the scamsters then use to extract money from people's accounts. It is believed billions of dollars have been stolen from accounts worldwide.
Dr Dunn said those behind the work-from-home websites and emails could seek similar information and use it to steal people's cash in what is known as advance-fee fraud.
``This one looks on the surface to be a bit more believable, but when you start thinking about it, why would I give you money to transfer to someone else . . . People have become suspicious, which is a good thing, and it'd be nice to think no one's been caught, but I suspect that would be a bit naive," he said.
The Australian Consumers Association's spokeswoman on financial matters, Catherine Wolthuizen, said the ads carried the ``veneer of authenticity" because they appeared to be job opportunities rather than pure financial windfalls such as the scams that claim people have won large sums of cash in lotteries.
She said some people might already have been caught out but had been too frightened to report any theft because they felt involved in the wrongdoing.
© 2004 The Age