Job ad in leading paper sounds like scam?

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wednesday

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Job ad in the local paper seeking admin assistant working from home 8-13 hours a week. Not much other detail just an email address. Anyway I replied on Monday and received an email on Tuesday that I felt was very strange :-

Hi ,

Thank you for your interest.Our Construction firm has been in
existence for over 10yrs in Australia and we am moving to Ireland to
work on a project for Shell and Exxon mobil.Due to my busy schedule, I
am always in need of a PERSONAL ASSISTANT to carry out the duties
listed below:

-Maintain the general filing system and file all
-Assist receiving conference telephone calls
-Make preparations for corporate meetings
-Respond to inquiries
-Provide word-processing and secretarial support
-Type confidential documents on a word-processing system


Skills:
Excellent in English, writing effective and good communications skills.


additional attributes:
1.Honesty and trust worthy
2.Respectful
3.flexibility
4.Demonstrate good work ethics

However,I will call you to discuss your job duties in detail.You will
be presented an Employment Contract Salary of EURO 600 (after tax) is
paid bi-weekly;

benefits include: medical and paid vacation (bonuses) at the end of each year.

Your job will officially start before I depart Australia... Which
means you will work from home and help where necessary so as to make
our transitioning easier.A laptop will be provided to create
efficiency in your duties. A disc containing the company platform will
be mailed to you to guide you through the process.A cheque,Money order
or bank draft will be sent to you to coordinate some purchases such as
stationery and secure accommodation (hotel) for other delegates
attending coming with me.

Kindly provide the information below in order to mail the cheque and disc.

First Name:
Last Name:
House name: (where applicable)
Street Address: (including house number where applicable)
Town:
County:
Cell Phone:
Home Phone:
Country:
Gender:
Age:
Marital Status:
Best Times To Call:
Present or Previous Job Status/Position:

Ensure you pick phone calls and check your email regularly.

Given the grammatical errors and confusion over you're and your...I'm very suspicious. Mr Wednesday said that since they weren't looking for any banking details that there wouldn't be any harm replying, which I did - including my CV again. Anyone else come across this?
 
Sounds like a scam and you should report your suspicion to the paper which carried the ad.

.A cheque,Money order
or bank draft will be sent to you to coordinate some purchases such as
stationery and secure accommodation (hotel) for other delegates
attending coming with me.
Click to expand...

After you get this, the meeting will be cancelled and you will be asked to refund the money by money order. The cheque will then bounce.

I am also suspcious of anyone who pays salary "after tax". How do they know your tax status? A person who has assigned their credits to their partner would need a much higher gross salary.
 
Defo sounds like a scam. Way too many errors, putting PERSONAL ASSISTANT in capitals etc.

Plus the story itself its very plausible....
 
The name of the company listed on the ad and on the email is walter holdings and included in the email was a web page link walter-holdings.co.uk, I went for a look and it's all to do with construction. Included in the mail are two phone numbers one that starts +4477 - which smells of UK mobile (on closer inspection though I came across a website that can give you a UK number from anywhere in the world :eek: uknumber.co.uk/index.htm) and the other which is +61756411804 which is a web design company called Utech in Australia. Me thinks I'll be calling my local newspaper now to inform them.
 
That website is as fake as fake could be.The only walter holdings I found in Companies House was a car dealer in Brighton!
 
job scam

Hi,

I have applied to the same advert in my local newspaper. Unfortunately, I supplied my C.V! I'm worried now that these people have my details. It was so convincing at the start.
 
It's a scam, I replied to an ad on Gumtree three months ago, same layout of a Personal Assistant job offer I replied to. When they realised I wasn't taking the bait, I have not heard from them since.
 
There are a lots of variation on this personal assistant scam, you will also be acting as a mail address to receive parcels purchases possibly with fraud credit cards
 
I also sent my CV to the job advert as it was in a prominent Munster paper. The same e-mail was sent to me requesting details which were on my CV. I would say it's definitely a scam. They must be placing adverts everywhere. I will contact the paper. Shame to be targeted when you're looking for work. Thanks to all who posted above which made me aware of this.
 
"A disc containing the company platform will
be mailed to you to guide you through the process"


I would be more worried about this "disc"....if they do actually send it then don't stick it in your computer.Could contain key logging stuff that can steal your personal data (if you do online banking for example) not to mention a whole load of virus.
 
scam

"We am moving to Ireland"

This is a very common grammatical mistake made by non-native English speakers from certain specific geographical regions where such scams are common.
 
wednesday said:
I'm very suspicious.
Click to expand...
Yes, i would be suspicious too! Do you have a telephone number from them? Then you could check it online (for example on TELLOWS) to see if there are other comments about the number. Maybe they will tell you if its a scam or not. Good luck!
 
Two things I've learnt today, don't put disks from strange companies into your PC and a UK telephone number may look genunine and like a landline but maybe not be.
 
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