Monday 17 October 2011

Scam alert: "Arvin Wollen" and his fake job offer

An email came in today as follows:
"A friend has been offered a job in UK via the internet. They were looking for someone who knows the business of taking care of the elderly. The one offering her a job said there were a lot of support workers in UK but none of them were willing to live and work full time and this prompted the need to look for a foreigner. My friend accepted the offer and they said she should pay £300 and they will contribute £4,000. They also said they will be responsible for flight ticket.

I am not sure if this is really a job or something else. How can I know if this is a job. At this moment my friend has not paid that sum because she is still looking for it.

Below are the details of the one offering the job

Arvin Wollen
+447741691065
No 97A Berkshire Court Estate,
London, United Kingdom
L32 7GH"
This is certainly a scam.

There are various clues. Firstly the UK has VERY strict rules about foreigners going to work in the UK unless they have very specialist skills. A care worker for the elderly is certainly not in that category. Those rules give preference to UK and European Union citizens first and only then do they consider non-EU citizens. Given that currently over 2.5 million Brits are unemployed they're not going to recruit people from Botswana.

Secondly, the address is wrong. The postcode "L32 7GH" is in Liverpool, not London and there's no trace of a "97A Berkshire Court Estate" anywhere in the UK and the only trace I can find of "Arvin Wollen" are on classified ad sites in far-flung places.

The final clue is the "advance fee" that he's demanding, the £300. That's what this is all about. It's a scam, there's no doubt about it.

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