Employment Scam: Bradford Financial

This is a personal account of how I got involved in an employment scam by a company calling themselves Bradford Financial. There are a lot of companies named Bradford Financial, this has nothing to do with those companies. This is only related to this particular website and this particular employment scam.

First Contact

Looking for a job in this economy is very difficult. So when I received an email from Bradford Financial looking for a part-time accounting finance assistant I was thrilled. It's to be a work from home position and pay between $1,200 to $1,700 per month, depending on experience, and Bradford Financial claimed it would take about 15 hours a week of my time. The job requires that the person applying for the position, in this case me, have a Bachelors degree in accounting, which I have.

Although this sounded like a lot of money for 15 hours a week worth of simple accounting that I could do at home, I thought I would give them a chance because the ad sounds completely legitimate. The email I received told me to fill out the registration form on their website to apply and get started with the online interview process.

After filling out the online form and getting access to their website I was sent an email. This email told me to go to their website to read my message. It seems that all messages to and from Bradford Financial will be done through their website (not all, but most).

The message had six job interview questions for me to answer. A few days after filling out the interview questions I received another message. This time telling me that I had been hired by Bradford Financial for this position. It went on to describe what my job would be. All I had to do now is wait for the employment contract.

The Employment Contract

Bradford Financial's employment contract is what made me start to become suspicious that this may be a scam. This was mainly because the employment contract asked for my bank account information. Bradford Financial needed my bank account information for two reasons. One, they pay using direct deposit, that's pretty normal. Two, they are going to send money to my bank account so I can pay their investors stock dividends.

• Red Flag: Whenever someone is going to send you money so you can pay other people, this is a scam.

The only reason I signed the contract was because all the other "Nigerian" type scams sent out checks, they didn't wire the funds to your bank account. Bradford Financial is going to wire the funds directly into my bank account, sounds pretty safe, or so it would seem. I preceded to open a new checking account just for this job, just to be safe.

• definition: Nigerian Scam - Nigerian scams started when a person claiming to be from Nigeria needed help getting funds to someone in the US. For some reason they needed a third party person to do this for them.

  They send you a check and you put it in your bank account. You then send the money to the third person and keep a portion of the money for yourself as a fee. Soon the check bounces and you are left owing the bank all the funds. The way this is done has changed over the years, but until now has always used forged checks, or something of that nature.

My Research on Bradford Financial

I'm pretty good at finding information on the Internet, I've been doing it since 1998 after all. So I searched, and I searched, and I found... nothing. Nothing telling me this was a scam at all, but also nothing telling me anything about this company. It's as though they don't exist, except for their website.

I became more suspicious that this was a scam as I looked up their physical address, and found an apartment building in New York City, NY. Then I searched the phone number I had been give, and it was traced to Tacoma, WA. I asked them for confirmation of their company, they ignored it.

• Red Flag: Companies, at least in the US, are more than happy to provide you with information about them. Addresses, stock information, news, anything.

The Transaction to My Account

Money was to be transferred to my checking account soon, so they needed me to find out where the nearest Western Union is to me so I can send out the funds as soon as they hit my account. Three days later the money hit my account, $1,990. My bank put a hold on the money as soon as it hit because my checking account was new. We waited five more days for the money to come off hold.

The instructions for the money were soon sent to me. They told me that my pay was included in the funds sent. I was to keep a portion, use some of it to pay the Western Union fees, and send a specific amount to the investor. The investor, by the way, is located in Russia.

• Red Flag: Including the funds with the other money is not a "normal" business practice.

Fake Money

While I was waiting I did some research on the money that had been sent to my checking account. I started by emailing my bank from their website, no response. So I went to the branch and asked them how long it takes for money to be completely clear. I wanted to know, "At which point do you really know it's real money and safe to use?" They told me it could be up to 12 business days.

I can't wait that long to find out if the money's going to bounce or not before contacting Bradford Financial about the transaction. They're hounding me to send out this money as soon as possible. I have to do something quick, I don't want to touch the money yet because I'm very suspicious that it's going to disappear.

The next thing I did was called the bank the funds were drawn on. This information for the transaction was on my online bank account. I printed out a copy of the e-check and made the call. Instantly I was told that these funds would not clear. Apparently the day after this money was sent to my bank account, there was a "stop payment" issued on the transaction.

Now this money sits in my checking account while I wait for it to disappear. As soon as it does I'm closing my bank account. Bradford Financial has access to it so using this bank account would be dangerous for me. They could come in one day and wipe me out.

What You Need To Know

I was careful and didn't lose any money. Calling the bank the money was drawn on and actually talking to someone on the phone, instead of emailing them, was the best think I could have done.

• Beware of any company that wants to send you money so that you can pay other people for them.
• Even if you've never heard of the scam, it could still be a scam.
• No matter how careful you are, there's always someone out there who will try to scam you.
• Do your research, then do some more.
• Don't be afraid to call the bank yourself, before cashing a check or spending any money.
• These scams are very sophisticated and anyone and everyone is vulnerable.
• This can happen to anyone, it's not your fault if you get scammed.