Work from home ad too good to be true

Maricopa resident Gail Shores thought she had found a good thing in the Communicator help wanted section nearly a week ago.

Sandwiched between a listing for a manufactured home sales person and a listing for a part-time clerk was the listing Shores found.

This listing reads as follows: Ethnic Textiles Industry currently has a space for a part-time work from home clerk or account manager and sales representative. The position pays $400 per week plus benefits and takes only a little of your time. Please contact us for more details. Requirements: Should be computer literate. 2-3 hours access to the Internet weekly. Must be efficient and dedicated. If you are interested and need more information, contact Ralph Clark at [email protected]

Shores, as many others most likely did, sent an email to Mr. Clark asking for information on the position.

Shortly after sending that message, Shores received an email back stating that the position entailed Shores accepting checks from the company, depositing them in her personal account and then returning 90 percent of the money to the company.

“I knew there was something wrong with this, so I didn’t even respond back,” Shores said.

However, this wouldn’t be the end of the scam. A few days latter Shore received a message from the company, which stated that the first check was on the way.

When the nearly $4,000 check arrived in the mail, Shore’s suspicion level rose another notch. She called the New Orleans bank on whom the check was written to inquire about its legitimacy; they told her the account was good.

“These types of scams will often draw on large companies who don’t notice the money is missing for several weeks or even months,” said Maricopa Police Department Sgt. Stephen Judd.

Next she called the company who had made out the check; they told her they had never written such a check.

Shores never cashed the check, and the Communicator has since removed the ad.

“This is a common scam,” Judd said.

The people running these scams have nothing to lose. They send out the checks, and, if the person cashing them gets caught, nothing can be tracked back to them because all the communication was done online, Judd added.

Judd recommends that if someone has information on a scam or is the victim of a scam that they call the police department.

File photo