Doubting if this is a scam. Please help us.

Me and my friends were currently applying for Holiday Inn Hotel under Home Border Office Agency. I am not sure if this is a fraud or scam or something since all our transaction are being done via email. The email of the person or persons who contact us are the following:

[email protected] - agency they forward us
[email protected] - agency they forward us
[email protected] - employer

Their claims are very convincing. We already have our contract with the company, work permit and visa. They let us send 150 pounds via western union and we have all complied that amount. This is for the opening account of our bank (which is Barclays) and they have sent us the confirmation that our account has been opened together with our first monthly salary from our employer. Our salary range from 2,800 pounds - 3,000 pounds a month. 4hrs work per day in 3 days a week. I just searched that the minimum wage in UK is 6.19 pounds or something in our range.

Now they are asking us to send money 700 pounds to be paid for our Basic Travel Allowance (BTA). We pleaded them that we just have to show them the proof since the amount will be just shown in the UK embassy here in Manila for stamping of our passport and then they will give it back to us. I really am doubting. As of now, I am the one left who haven't sent my BTA via western union. They were hurrying us. My deadline is this coming Thursday (July 19, 2012).

They have this heading on their emails.

Lunar House
40 Wellesley Road
UNITED KINGDOM.
Tel: +447(0) 111 529 95
Fax + 44 7(0) 207 5768476
Email- [email protected]
Date- 16-07-2012.


HOLIDAY INN KENSINGTON FORUM
97 CROMWELL ROAD
LONDON, SW7 4DN ENGLAND
UNITED KINGDOM
Recruitment Department: +447035947352
Fax: +44-20-73731448

The details above seems legit. I am just full of doubts. I just hope this isn't one of the scams because my friends will be soo goddamn pity.

Anyone, if you know anything, please help us.

Thanks.
Yhangge

Unfortunately, no matter how convincing it is, it is a complete scam.
-Travel Agencies cannot arrange visas. Even if they could, legitimate travel agencies do NOT have free yahoo addresses.
-Holiday Inn hotels not use yahoo addresses for official business either.
-The UK Home Office also does NOT use free email addresses - they are part of the government and their addresses would end in .gov They also don't arrange visas by email.
-The UK Home Office does not request payment via Western Union.

-THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BTA! As you noted, the British Embassy does require that visa applicants have a certain minimum level of funding, but it is not called BTA and you do not send it to anyone.

-Phone numbers that start with 4470 are NOT UK numbers. They are redirect phone numbers--calls are forwarded to phones anywhere in the world, in this case most likely the scammer's cell phone in Africa or Malaysia.

It is also important to know that in order to keep jobs available for its own citizens, UK HAS CUT OFF ALL EMPLOYMENT VISAS IN CERTAIN WORK CATEGORIES, including almost all general labor categories. If you are not from an EU country, there are NO visas for general positions like housekeeping, foodservice, etc.

Yhangge, PLEASE STOP.
It is a scam.
The basic travel allowance is a cock and bull story scammers invent to make their story more believable. It has been covered in the forums previously. The 4470 phone numbers you have been given are another positive sign of a scam. A better description of these re-direct phones appears on the page viewtopic.php?f=26&t=13567
The reason scammers hurry you is because they strike before the target can think.
Your best course of action is to stop all contact with the tossers otherwise they will milk you dry.
Please be wary of the scammer/ s writing in the next coming weeks from a different email address and with different names. Now they have your email address, they may try again in future or sell your details to other scammers. On the bright side, you know what to look out for if that happens.

Oh my God. They have told us that they will come here to stamp our papers when we comply our BTA. I am trying to seek help from UK, emailing them, even the UK home border office, but my email just keep coming back. It is true that we didn't receive any interviews of some sort. We just got accepted immediately. Poor thing. This is cruel. The addresses were all true as based on my research. They even told me that there might be a chance that I will be banned from coming to UK since I have already signed the contract for 3 years. I was so scared and so, up until now I wanted to find that 700 pounds money.

Anyway, I will reply them and say that I am withdrawing my application and I will take back my 150 pounds as they promised.

I don't know how reliable this site is. But because I am doubting I will take your advice. Let me see where this goes. This is do or die.

Thank you so much.

Yhangge

I am sad to be saying to you but the 150 Pounds sent via wu will not be able to be recovered, once received.
<re: withdrawing my application and I will take back my 150 pounds as they promised.> The only way to recover the money you sent is if the fraudulant scammer has not collected it yet. If it's been collected, sad to say but you've lost it forever.
The uk home border address posted above is a fictitious address devised by the scammer/ s.
The real proper address should end in .gov.uk or similar. Cannot stress enough the address does not end in yahoo.
Also the fax number you received is interesting because it has appeared in a previous scam letter.
http://419.bittenus.com/12/5/peterharmony.html I find it odd that 2 companies have the same fax number!
Please do not confront the scam artist or advise them you realise the scam, otherwise they will tell you more lies. The scammers have no conscious, morals or interest in you. The fact is you are a source of revenue for them.
I'm sorry the grubby tricksters have wasted your time.

As Jolly Roger said, if any money has not been picked up, it is important to contact Western Union immediately to cancel the transactions.

They will not return any money that they have collected. The whole purpose of this scam was to steal your money, not to give it back. Sometimes they will promise to return your money, but that is only because they want to try to get more money from you--in the end, they will make up a reason why you have to send more money in order to get your money back, and they will steal that money too! Sometimes they will even contact you again, pretending to be the police or some kind of officials who can get your money back. Again, this is all lies, and is just a way for them to try to get more money out of you.

It is very important to understand who you are dealing with.

These people are thieves. They will take as much money as they can from you, pretending to be your friend, when in reality they don't care what happens to you. They see you as nothing more than a way to get money for themselves, and they will say whatever they think is necessary to get it. You could lose your home and have no food, and it wouldn't matter to them. They would still take the last few pennies you had if they could get their hands on it. I have seen scammers like this who have not hesitated to steal money that their victim desperately needed for medical care, even when they knew the person could die without it. They have driven victims to suicide, and it didn't even slow them down--they just kept scamming more people.

They are like bank robbers, only they use words instead of weapons to get your money. But they are no more likely to return your money than a bank robber would be.

As far as being banned from UK goes, that is just another lie to try to convince you to pay. You did not sign a legal contract, because you were never in contact with anyone from the real Holiday Inn. You are not giving up a job, because there never was a job. And you have NEVER been in contact with the UK home office or anyone connected to them.

As to how reliable this site is--I can tell you that we deal with these situations every single day. We know how these thieves work, because we have seen it thousands of times. Our whole reason for being here is to help people to avoid them, because the chances of the authorities catching them is actually extremely small.

As stated it is a scam the [email protected] - employer is not in the UK. He is in Port Harcort, Nigeria with his other email id's.

IP Address Quick Report
IP Address: 41.71.161.183
Organization: Visafone Communications Limited
City: Port Harcourt
Country of Origin: Nigeria
* For a complete report on this IP address goto ipTRACKERonline

Thank you for that information Jolly and Dotti. I am quite confident now.
Mr. Bryon, if you are right, how could they pick the money when they were in Nigeria and not in Wellesley, UK? Could it be that the people we sent the money were in UK and the person/persons who emailed us is in Nigeria? This makes me very odious.

I will share one of their message to us.
-
Lunar House
40 Wellesley Road
UNITED KINGDOM.
Tel: +447(0) 111 529 95
Fax + 44 7(0) 207 5768476
Email- [email protected]
Date- 29-06-2012.

GOOD AFTER NOON DEAR CLIENTS.

I wish to inform you that your papers are out and given unto my hand today with letter of authentication which visa representative will use to stamp it in British Embassy Manila Philippines. he will deliver your papers and all the necessary document that will be issued to the British embassy Manila to stamp your papers. visa representative will return back to London tomorrow Saturday 30th of June 2012 and according to his instructions, each of you who want his papers to be delivered and stamped next week should try and confirm his/her basic travel allowance to him on Monday 2nd of July 2012.
The payment should be pay on his name with the following information

Receiver name....... Gibson A. Henshaw
Address.. Lunar house 40 wellesley road London
Email.... [email protected]

Scan the payment receipt and send to him and also forward it to me so that i can also confirm it. Upon his arrival in Aquino international airport Manila where you will meet him to go to the British embassy, he will immediately refund each you your respective BTA money. he said that he will not spend more than 3 days in Philippines and probably, the stamping of your papers will be Thursday or Friday.
Those of you who are not currently employed should prepare to departure to London with him after the stamping of your papers while those currently employed should stay back and file resignation letter to your employers. so therefore extra 1 month will be given to you according to holiday inn hotel human resource manager.
In case i did not attached your work permit, get back to me to give you reason.

Our Customer Service line is open 24 hours a day from Monday to Saturday office contacting hour.

Regards,

Fazrudeen.

UK HOME BORDER VISA TRAVEL AGENCY.
-

How could some people do such horrible thing. :/

Scammers frequently have money sent to UK (or other countries) when they are in Nigeria. There are 3 common ways they do this:

1) They have an accomplice in UK, who collects the money and sends it to the scammers in exchange for part of the money.
2) They are using another victim to collect and forward money. That victim may have answered an employment ad, and believe that they have a legitimate job as a payment agent for a business, or it may be a romance scam victim who believes he/she is helping their future spouse to collect a debt that is owed them.
3) Nigeria has an extremely high level of corruption, and bribery is an everyday part of life for many people there. A corrupt Western Union employee can sometimes be bribed to change the country information on a Western Union transfer so that the scammer can collect it in Nigeria.

The above mentioned mobile phone number 447(0) 111 529 95 is interesting. It has been previously used in a nanny type scam. http://www.hod2.com/caregiver-nanny-spam-mail-6188.html is the page I'm referring.
I cannot see a date on the article, therefore is difficult to say whether it's an old story or more recent.

This is funny. I just withdraw my application. And this the response. They're quite persistent, I say.
-
Lunar House
40 Wellesley Road
UNITED KINGDOM.
Tel: +447(0) 111 529 95
Fax + 44 7(0) 207 5768476
Email- [email protected]
Date- 17-07-2012.

GOOD MORNING DEAR CLIENT.

Got your mail and all you said are well noted and i knew how you feels about your unable to raise your BTA money. as the matter of fact, it will be very bad to go back to the immigration and submit another application to cancel your papers after withdrawing it back just few days back, even the immigration border now are requesting we should provide the anti terrorism certificate due to some certain issues of withdrawing and we're fighting over it to know what we can do about it. so to submit another letter to them to withdraw your papers will make them to confiscate the papers of all of you and hotel will not be happy over it due to the amount they have spent.

After my communication with visa representative about your inability to complete the 700 pounds, he said he will help you pay 200 pounds. so try your possible best to raise 500 pounds and send to him, he will help you to complete it before coming to Philippines.

According to representative, he said you should not disclose this to your fellow workers.

Try your possible best to know how much you can raise while because we don't want the situation where your papers will be ruined.
-

This gang of scammers and thieves are definitely in Nigeria.

Holiday Inn Hotel Forum

[email protected]

Header Analysis Quick Report
Originating IP: 41.138.167.58
Originating ISP: Visafone Communications Limited
City: Awka
Country of Origin: Nigeria
* For a complete report on this email header goto ipTRACKERonline

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Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of [email protected] designates 77.238.189.58 as permitted sender) [email protected]; dkim=pass (test mode) [email protected]
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Hello,

We acknowledged the receipt of your mail and we're delighted to inform you that the job is available. contract duration is 1 year contract renewable. we need 5 people that can also work as housekeepers in the hotel. so it will be our pleasure if you can get us more 5 or 4 workers that can work with you.

we hope to hear from you

Reference: http://nigeria.usembassy.gov/scams.html

Beware of anyone who requests funds for a BTA, or Basic Travel Allowance, as a requirement to depart another country for the United States. There is no such thing as a BTA. In other cases, your Internet friend will claim to need a travel allowance, or travel money, to be able to travel to the United States. Again, there is no such requirement under U.S. law.

Hi yhangge! just want to ask where you found the vacancy that this con posted.

i saw an ad on bestjobs.ph and i'm starting to doubt its legitimacy. The guy wants to have an online interview via skype, search the address of the office it is positive, phone number is ringing, i trace the IP address of the email he sent to know if the email was really sent from South Africa, but it was traced in california. Funny thing, the guys last name was also Henshaw and when i searched his full name here nothing came up but with the last name about dozen threads came up.

I'm not sure if i should go on with the interview or if i'm just wasting my time on this con.

any advice guys?

thanks!

Welcome to ScamWarners nakikigamit .

The reason the IP lead you to California is the scammer is using a proxy to hide his location.

Ont thing to ask yourself, "If this is a real job offer, why are they using Yahoo as their email provider? Shouldn't they have an email address which has their company?

Where is the "job" and why don't they want to meet you face to face? I certainly would want to meet my future employee face to face.

You are correct, interviewing over Skype is unusual. The person on Skype can be where ever they want to claim. You have no way of knowing if you are speaking to a real person who is in the location they claim, or if you are talking to a video recording.

I would berify with the actual employer whether they are looking for the job you are applying for.

As hard as it is to check on this "too good to be true" job, it is also hard to be put in jail for a crime you didn't know you were committing. Best of luck ~Bubbles