So let’s talk about those cases where you get a job offer in France, your contact is therefore abroad and most of the contact is done by phone, or even worse, SMS. Note that when the scam is really well thought out, you will probably have a very kind contact calling you, maybe even on your mobile, to give you the impression you really are a valuable candidate.
Where you definitely walk away is when you are asked to send money upfront with the promise of the job at the end. Indeed if you send money, this is the last contact you will have, as soon as the money has been received on the other side, you will never hear anything again. Your money will be gone for good and you will have no way to recover it. This scam is common all over the world and isn't limited to France.
So be careful. Fraudsters are very well organized, this is what they do for a living. So they will go to great lengths to make you believe you are talking to somebody genuinely interested in helping you.
Job offers aren't always what they seem
For example, as we were talking above about your contact being based in France, before you indeed send money abroad, take a minute to consider this: many such fraudulent job offers seem to be originating in France as it is a very sought-after country to settle in. But this is only a false connection. Forwarding addresses, international email addresses and French mobile phone numbers are being used to contact you. So you may think your contact is genuine because he is based in France (or his company is), but you are being fooled. The fraudster is in fact based somewhere else (Asia or Africa for example). All this is for only one purpose: getting you to send money.
There is also another trick to spot: because the ultimate aim is to make you send money, the fraudulent job offer will simply be too good to be true. For example, a high monthly salary (it's up to you to consider what the average salary should be), company car, health insurance, accommodation, a generous bonus and incentive schemes, maybe even flight tickets and accommodation for several months for your family. Under those conditions, you may well be more inclined to send money upfront as you are being promised a big financial reward in return. So forget about getting rich quickly or not working hard for big financial rewards.
Additional tips on how to spot a scam
So the above is pretty generic and it may still be difficult to spot the scams. A couple more tips below, very practical ones and this is really where you must be alert:
- Genuine employers and their company will not use Yahoo, Hotmail or other generic email accounts.
- If there is no website for the company you are being contacted by, walk away. If there is: well-known names may be used on the website but the contact email addresses will be Yahoo or Hotmail again.
- If for some very obscure reason, you were sent money by check (as a token of their appreciation because they really want you to take the job), never ever send money from a deposited check until it officially clears. Just because funds are available doesn’t mean a check has cleared - by law, banks must make deposited funds available within a few days but it can take weeks to uncover a fake check. So basically once you have sent money, your bank will advise you that the check you received is worth nothing.
- As mentioned above, contact by only email or SMS is something to be wary of but check in any case for common red flags like poor grammar, misspellings, character/spacing mistakes, and excessive
capitalization.
- Be wary of businesses that operate using a post office box and don’t have a street address (check this on the website if there is one, if not ask for the address of the company).
- Think about the recruitment process you are facing here: you are being contacted out of the blue from a company you do not know, for a job you have not applied for. And you are being offered the job already without even having any kind of interview, let alone a face-to-face one. Very few genuine companies (employers or recruiting agencies) would offer a job by email.
- Finally take a search engine and associate the name of the company (if you have been given one) with a keyword like “scam”. If you do get hits in the search results for this type of query be sure to walk away immediately … and do not send money!
After all that, if you still have doubts, there is one golden rule to obey in any circumstance (so not just when it comes to job offers): do not send money to anyone you don’t know and trust, especially people you’ve never met in-person.
It is important to realize further that those fraudsters are professional criminals: while their primary aim is to get your money, even if you get wary, they will always try to take advantage of you. Get your bank details, your home address, a copy of your passport. The ultimate goal being to try to seek, steal, or abuse your identity for financial gain.
We hope that you are now better equipped to face the dirty tricks used by fraudsters worldwide (no matter where they come from and where they are based, the tricks are always the same). It is not the first time that we would have had a customer come into one of our agent locations to send money to an unknown recipient based on the promise of a job abroad. Luckily, employees can, and will, ask questions about the reason you have to send money to make sure you are using our services for the right reason.
On the other hand if you aim to send money online, you may not have the chance to be warned by anyone and this is why we hope to have made you more aware of the dangers that lurk when sending money.
Use safe money transfer services
If you are confident you can send money to your beneficiary, try Western Union's Direct to Banks service. The transfer will take between one to three days to reach your beneficiary’s bank account. If you are in a hurry, use our Money in Minutes service with a cash payout in minutes **
** Funds may be delayed or services unavailable based on certain transaction conditions, including amount sent, destination country, currency availability, regulatory issues, identification requirements, Agent location hours, differences in time zones, or selection of delayed options. For mobile transactions funds will be paid to receiver’s m-wallet account provider for credit to account tied to receiver’s mobile number. Additional third-party charges may apply, including SMS and account over-limit and cash-out fees. See the transfer form for restrictions.
