Job Scam Listed on Gumtree Australia - Sydney

Hi

I was going through some job ads on Gumtree Australia and found an office job advertised (as below); so I sent an inquiry via the gumtree contact form to find out about the company.

Part Time Office Role
Sydney New South Wales view on map

Date Listed:
08/05/2013
Last Edited:
08/05/2013
Advertised By:
Private
Job Type:
Casual

We are looking for a part time administration assistant to work one to two days per week.

The role will primarily be focused on accounts, emailing and calling clients ,online sales.

Salary negotiable.

This was the typical scam-like responses I got:


1st e-mail

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 6:56 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi there,
I'm glad you answered so quickly and that you are interested in this job proposal.
Please send your personal email address so we can communicate easier and send you more information about this job.
Thanks.

2nd e-mail

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 7:35 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

Please send your personal email address so we can communicate easier and send you more information about this job.
I can't attach nothing here !

3rd e-mail

Donna Christophers <[email protected]>

7:42 PM (32 minutes ago)

to me
Hi there!
Nice to hear from you!
You want to make some money fast and easy earnings at home?
I want to find a person willing to post my items online on eBay because I don't have an eBay account and making one now with 0 feedback will not attract potential buyers...
First of all you need to be registered on eBay, and to have a good feedback rating, we can't work with 0 feedback sorry!
I am out from the country for couple of weeks, that's way i need someone to make the posting for me.
You will get 10% from the price + the eBay fees for each item you list for me on eBay!
You can make more then 700 AUD a week, because my items have a big value!
And most important: I offer and demand 100% reliability.
I wait your answer.
Thanks.

Some things I would like to point out is firstly the writing format and tone of the reply was nowhere close to being professional. There were formatting mistakes and use of too many exclamation points. Secondly, my initial query was not answered (about wanting to find out about who the company is etc.). Lastly, the alarm bells ring straight away when this was being mentioned: "out of the country for a couple of weeks".

Also, before I forwarded my gmail address in response to their 2nd e-mail I noticed that the reply from gumtree showed a "to: [email protected]" at some point. It seems like the e-mail exchange was being forwarded to another e-mail address.

Another issue I noticed was that the original job ad description was false advertising because it is not strictly an Office Administration Assistant role.

Some errors in the English are consistent with West African, and a real company would use the company domain, not live.com, for email. Could you post the email headers?

If you haven't spotted the reason why the scammer wants you to sell his goods scam_awareness, it's nothing to do with not having any feedback. Basically he wants to perform fraud and for you to take financial responsibility for his actions. If you comply with his request you effectively allow the scammer access to your finances.

Having a zero feedback doesn't prevent him trading and he can only improve his status by trading honestly - but that's not his intention and it would be the icing on the cake for him to be able to make you take responsibility for his frauds.

Apart from the losses you would undoubtedly suffer, if you have a successful eBay business, he will destroy it and its reputation. You won't earn anything.