Sheraton Hotels/Western Union

Hi all,

I was contacted by the "HR Manager" of the Sheraton Imperial, Kuala Lumpur saying that they had seen my CV and were interested in employing me in an Executive Head Chef position.

Everything seemed official and above board, telephone interviews were conducted with at least 4 high ranked members of staff (HR manager, General Manager, Board of Directors and Outgoing Head Chef) and I was eventually offered the position.

I accepted along with the terms and conditions which were all official looking and seemed above board. I was asked to comply with company policy of paying for 50% of my airfare and it was booked in Malaysia for me. I had some other questions so I rang them again on the number that had come up when they called me. I transferred the funds (almost 500GBP) Via Western Union Money Transfer and was sent an email saying that the payment had been accepted and was awaiting visa clearance.

In all this I had also supplied my passport details in full.

I was then alarmed when they contacted me again to say the Visa had cleared and that I had to pay 50% again of 1,942GBP (968GBP was what they wanted) for my half of the visa and was sent a very official looking document with reference numbers etc on and a certificate of approval.

I was suspicious so contacted the Malaysian High Commission here in London and was told it was a scam and not to pay.

I then called the actual hotel this morning (not the number I had saved as was using a different phone so accessed the number via the web) and it turns out that there have been 30 cases of this scam alone this month and that, even though the position is being filled with an English chef, it was not, nor had they ever heard of me.

You can imagine my anger and embarrassment at hearing this but I have co-operated with them in supplying all fraudulent emails that I had been sent and that I had sent in reply to help track down those responsible so that no one else falls for this quite high level scam.

I am worried about the money as it was loaned to me by my father and transferred via Western Union Money Transfer and from what I have read on here, once it is collected the other end then it's a loss.

Welcome to the forum dupedchef and I regret that you've been caught out by this type of scam which is currently a massive problem. Apart from the money problems it causes, the emotional and mental effect of going from the excitement and high of a new job to then finding you've had your money stolen on the promise of a dream job that doesn't exist, must be gut wrenching.

It's highly unlikely you'll get your money back but telling your story will help alert others who make a Google search, and for that reason the e-mail addresses the scammers used and the content of their mails to you would assist.

Welcome to the forums dupedchef. Yes that is correct. No legit business would ever ask people to send funds by wire transfer. Scammers prefer wu, moneygram and ucash is also gaining popularity with them. The reason being the money tranference is very quick for them, and in many instances no ID is needed to receive the cash. Once the cash is collected, no recourse is available and you are unable to find out from them any details of the receiver. They will not divulge information because of 'privacy concerns'. The only way to stop payment to the receiver is to cancel the payment before collection. I'm sorry this happened to you.
Can you please publish the scammer/s email address and any other relevant information. It will help others in future.

Hi guys,

Thank you for your support, however hollow, I know I am not the only one that has suffered this and anything I can do to make sure not too many other people are duped, I will...

The email address of origin was [email protected] and the name on all correspondence is Haikal Maarof, who is actually the HR Director of said hotel.

Following is the first email I received which I didn't question as I have a friend that works internationally and had actually told me the week before that he had handed my CV to someone in KL so I had no reason to be suspicious. I have left my initials as do not wish to supply my real name.

Hello Mr. W S

After a review on your Application which we received via Caterer.com
regarding the position of an "Executive/Head chef", your eligibility meets
our employment requirements. In this regard, find attached to this email
our official employment application form, which you are required to fill
and return to us as an attachment upon your reply within 72hrs. Should you
be successful, you will be shortlisted for an oral interview.

Regards.
Mr.Haikal Maarof
HR Manager
+60143251091

Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur Hotel
129 Jalan Sultan Ismail 50250 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
[email protected]
www.sheratonhotels-kl.com

The links are live, real links to the property and the phone number is a cell phone as I found out today as Malaysian hard lines begin +603 and not +601

The domain is in the process of being reported for fraud.

We try to help people with advice dupedchef. You have a private message.

Do you know 'dupedchef' whether your e-mail address is viewable by employers on the website where you posted your cv, or whether they have to contact you through the website ?

That would be helpful to know.

If it's the second option, then scammers get a victim database at quite a reasonable cost, with no means to stop them.

Thank you Jolly-Roger, I have replied.

Boycey, my email is atop my cv, and has now been removed. I have also contacted caterer.com to alert them to the fraud

Being too old, ill and useless to be in the job market any more I'm not up to date on current methods but it seems that you should protect yourself by only accepting job offers emanating from the sites where you've posted your cv, To ensure that happens then, as you've done, don't put your e-mail address where it can be viewed by anyone who seeks to misuse the database. Just put it in the space provided which I presume will hide it from potential employers and make them use the site (which won't deter genuine employers). It doesn't guarantee the genuineness of offers, but you have the ability then to report any fake job offers you receive. Doing otherwise is inviting fake offers. Having the ability to report fakes gives you some control.

No reason you can't apply for jobs elsewhere, but just be sure you keep a record of who you've posted a cv to and treat with caution any responses from people you haven't sent a cv to.

Cheers Boycey (Iknow it's not your real handle but can't resist with your avatar)

have some people looking in to the ip location and also the cell phone number supplied does actually work as I have tried to call it

That's another feature of these scams. They appear to have an inexhaustible supply of VOIP numbers but they don't answer them. That's another feature I'll be looking at more deeply. At one stage I was listing them all but it was wasting my time when I can always come back and pick them all up.

Old and useless as I am, I have the time to research and any operation on this scale is guaranteed to be sloppy with so many people involved. This is far from a one man operation.

Have managed to trace 3 different ip addresses from the email and all are US based, one from apple HQ in Cupertino, CA. 1 from a company in San Francisco, CA and another from New York, NY.

Now i'm no geography genius but none of these are in Malaysia.

Would anybody care to help at all?

[17.172.83.249] origin Apple, Cupertino, CA

[199.189.248.130] origin Mifco LLC, New York, NY

[68.68.38.132] origin Black Oak Computers Inc - San Francisco, CA

These are the only ip addresses that are visible on the emails

Micfo is where the fake site is hosted (the site and its nameservers are in three different netblocks, but all belong to Micfo). The others may be where you get mail or where they sent a spoofed email from. Could you post the headers?

So i've just been to the Money Shop where I deposited the funds via Western Union Money Transfer and been told that the funds have been collected in Malaysia at a location called "Petal Lengala", and not from the address that it was sent to...

Western Union declare a total loss on my behalf, and the guy in the shop basically just said tough

Hopefully no one else is going to fall for this. Micfo has taken the website down, and it looks like it's disabled the email as well. I get a 451 trying to send to it. If it stays at 451, any email sent to the address will stay in the sender's mail server for a few days and then bounce.