I was almost scammed, while job hunting.

[Mx.Drago]

I feel dumb for not noticing the red flags sooner, but my desperation to find work, almost got me caught in a Phishing email scam that targets College students and staff with a fake job proposal promising an upfront paid job as an assistant doing humanitarian work for UNICEF.

The scammers use College job forums to prey upon the desperate students and staff.

My mom received the email for the job proposal through her college work email, and she forwarded the proposal to me thinking it was legit and would help me. I was too trusting, but now I know not to be.

If you received an email or saw a job posting offering a job opportunity working for a Dr. Dennis Nicholas,saying he works for UNICEF, DO NOT CONTACT or engage any conversation. That person doesn't work for UNICEF and it is a fraud and scam.  Contact UNICEF USA directly through their website inquiring on any offered jobs you find through outside sources that seem too good to be true. It is done far too often this type of scam to take it lightly. They prey upon the desperate, and the pandemic made it easier, they do it while pretending they are helping disabled students in Australia. Below is a link to a face book job page for Marshall University Department of Social Work. In a post on Oct.26 @ 2:34 pm when you scroll down had a copy of the email I received when I first made contact with the scammer.

https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=3811443472253264&id=202755503122097

 

In this link is a report from Brown University Office of Information Technology, posting a fraud alert on a very similar emailed job offer dated Sept 10, 2019.

https://it.brown.edu/alerts/read/employment

 

The way they scam you is they access a forum of trust, like a university forum page, where people aren't paid enough and are desperate, and won't do the background check on the proposal. They ask for your info and then send you a check through email as a PDF to give the illusion of a rushed hiring process, saying they are in need of assistance immediately due to the pandemic presenting an issue. The scammers use fancy titles, but with research you'll find nothing to prove they own any of them.

But it's hard when people need work and money, to spend time researching every job proposal on top of personalized cover letters and resumes. Time is money, and far too many people don't have much of either. I luckily caught on before anything was stolen.

What the scam depends on is the banks rushed depositing protocols. By law in the US, when depositing a check the bank is obligated to give you the written amount, while they authenticate the check. The authentication process takes a while and people need money fast. So to make things quick and easy, the banks give the money in advance and deposit their own money, while waiting for the long process of authentication to pay off the deposited amount.

Normally, since it takes a long while to authenticate a check, the scammers request you use the money right away. They need you to work fast since the check is fake, and when it bounces it will leave you liable for the money while in the rush of things could already be long spent and gone, because they needed you to start work immediately. You're then accused of fraud and the scammers get away. 

 

Please be careful and don't make my mistake.

 

 

[Mx.Drago]

As another quick note I forgot to mention, it took me all day filing a report for the IC3 (Internet Crimes Complaint Center) at www.ic3.gov through an online complaint form, they are an arm of the FBI. An actual representative from UNICEF,  requested I contact that arm of the FBI about the incident, as well as verified the email I got was fraudulent, and no Dr. Dennis Nicholas works for them.

[Petra Jane]

I have just received an email from someone who did a Google search and found the above information and just wanted to share the feedback.

 

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Just wanted to say thank you for the article regarding the Dr. Dennis Nicholas scam written by Mx.Drago.

Even though I figured it was much to wonderful to be true, I was still unsure because it came from my UF work email. Thankfully, I decided to do a Google search. Basically you saved me from a bad experience.

Again, thanks for the help!

 

 

[Mx.Drago]

11 hours ago, Petra Jane said:

I have just received an email from someone who did a Google search and found the above information and just wanted to share the feedback.

 

 

Thank you Petra. I'm glad the report helped prevent another from being scammed.

Oddly enough 2 days ago in the morning got a call from a NY# 347-908-2824, guy was pretending to work for ConEd. He said, if I didn't call this other number to make a payment, they'd turn off my power...I don't own a house and ConEd never calls you. Had to make a report and everything with the FTC and police.