Internet Money Mule Scams on the Rise

The term "money mule" is unfamiliar to most people but we should all be aware of this kind of scheme. A typical money mule is recruited by responding to an email, advertisement, or forum post regarding starting a home-based business. The current economic situation with high unemployment rates has contributed to the pool of potential victims. Enterprising scammers are using respected job websites such as careerbuilder.com and monster.com to mine email addresses from resumes of job seekers and direct solicitations to them.

The following is the text from an actual message received October 28, 2009 apparently through the CareerBuilder user email system:

"Dear Candidate,

After viewing your resume on careerbuilder.com, we have decided to contact you regarding an offer. We have an exciting opportunity with our company for:
Accounts Payable Manager/Payments Processor in your area with no need of relocation.

New concept: Commissions without sales!!

Job Type:

• Accounting - Finance• Admin - Clerical• Customer Service

Requirements:

• Must have Microsoft Office Intermediate experience, checking emails 3 times/day• US citizen or permanent residence/green card holder• Desired Education Level: High School• Experience: N/A• Required Travel: NO• Relocation: NO

Benefits:

• Attractive bonuses and commissions with each order• No contact with our clients

Salary and commissions:

• Compensation: $85,000 - $95,000 per year• Employee Type: Full-Time/Part-Time Employee

Please let me know if you are interested.

Hiring Department"

Responding to these offers will bring an explanation that all that needs to be done is set up a business checking account into which sums of money will be deposited from time to time, The victim is allowed to keep a percentage of this money and is required to wire transfer the bulk of it to an address overseas, usually in Eastern Europe. The victim usually isn't aware that the deposited funds are from fraudulent credit card transactions or other illegal sources. The entire process is simply money laundering. In order to start the business relationship off, the scammers request lots of personal financial information which, of course, sets up the victim for future identity theft.

The reply-to address on this e-mail was medtechaccounts@bestjobcandidate.com. Attempting to access the Web site for bestjobcandidate.com you are taken to my.screenname.aol.com. The registration information for bestjobcandidate.com indicates AOL is the registrant, which is probably the result of "privacy" registration that keeps information about the real owner concealed.

Victims of these schemes should realize pretty quickly that this isn't a normal situation and then contact authorities. Innocent victims will usually escape jail but will be responsible for paying back the stolen funds. The actual criminals will get away and reel in more victims. The old saying about if it's too good to be true still applies.