Villa Meister is this a scam

Hi All
Got a job with this company Villa Meister KB. in Sweden it sounds fishy, I am to open an account at a large Aust. bank in an company name and also in a private name(for my wages) they have not asked for money but it sounds funny to have to open accounts, there website is very good.this was the first contact:
Hello!
I am an independent HR consultant and I am currently looking for candidates for Regional Representative position in Australia. The employer is European travel broker offering a collection of luxurious villa rentals in France, Greece and Italy. This company strives to win the Australian market in 2011 and they want to attract new customers by developing the brand in Australia and to extend the portfolio with the Australian properties.
Duties of the Regional Representative include the company representation within region, assistance in brand development, management of advertising campaigns, search for new rental properties and other managerial functions.
It should be easy to balance your current job or business with this flexible role, because you may start working part-time while keeping a current full-time job, but you may certainly start full-time at once.
Salary starts from AUD $1,500 fortnightly (part-time) and AUD $3,125 fortnightly (full-time).
If you are self-confident enough to start working from home or your own office and if you are seriously interested in this career opportunity, please contact HR manager directly and as soon as possible.
Send email request to Gustav Wennerstrom (HR manager of this company) at [email protected] and he should provide more description and application form.
I hope you are interested and thank you for your attention and time! Good luck!
I sent an email and got a response:
From: Gustav Wennerstrom [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, 3 March 2011 2:44 PM
To: kenj52
Subject: Description of the Regional Representative position



Hello!

Thanks for your interest in this position, I attach the detailed description and application form if you decide to apply. Please return the form as regular email reply, or digital PDF form, or scanned handwritten copy. As soon as I receive it, I will discuss your candidacy with my management and will inform you about our decision immediately. Have a good day!

P.S. We want our Regional Representative in Australia to commence within the next week.

Sincerely,
Gustav Wennerstrom,
HR manager
Villa Meister KB.
Email: [email protected]

This had a description and application then I got asked to join Gmail and Google talk and then they sent me this guide in PDF that I have to do, they really want me to open a bank account tomorrow so would like to know what you think.

website will be reported soon - Michael

Hi sooty66!
Welcome to Scamwarners!
I'm sure glad that you checked this company out as they are definitely a scam. I googled the company name and there was nothing to be found. When I googled the email address (another red flag-using a free yahoo account), again nothing. Then I put in the name Gustav Wennerstrom and came up with his scam email from our sister site, 419Eater: http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=198595

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Subject: Ref. 19VM2551350 : Regional manager, Australia (Nationwide)
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Hello!

I am an independent HR consultant and I am currently looking for candidates for Regional Representative position in Australia. The employer is European travel broker offering a collection of luxurious villa rentals in France, Greece and Italy. This company strives to win the Australian market in 2011 and they want to attract new customers by developing the brand in Australia and to extend the portfolio with the Australian properties.

Duties of the Regional Representative include the company representation within region, assistance in brand development, management of advertising campaigns, search for new rental properties and other managerial functions.

It should be easy to balance your current job or business with this flexible role, because you may start working part-time while keeping a current full-time job, but you may certainly start full-time at once.

Salary starts from AUD $1,500 fortnightly (part-time) and AUD $3,125 fortnightly (full-time).

If you are self-confident enough to start working from home or your own office and if you are seriously interested in this career opportunity, please contact HR manager directly and as soon as possible.


Send email request to Gustav Wennerstrom (HR manager of this company) at [email protected] and he should provide more description and application form.


I hope you are interested and thank you for your attention and time! Good luck!

IP address: 14.33.107.174
IP address country: Korea, Republic of
IP address state: n/a
IP address city: n/a
IP address latitude: 37.0000
IP address longitude: 127.5000
ISP of this IP: Korea Telecom
Organization: Korea Telecom

Would you please post the website address that they sent you? Our site killers would love to check that out!

Yes, it's a scam. Any job that requires you to personally open bank accounts is a scam, and a particularly bad one. These jobs typically involve depositing fake checks or receiving and forwarding payments from victims. In this case, it would be receiving payments from victims of an accomodations scam.


Either way, when all is said and done, the only thing you are likely to get out of it is a jail sentence.

The website was registered a week ago, and only for a year. The registration information is hidden, typical of a scammer.

Domain Name.......... villameister.com
Creation Date........ 2011-02-27
Registration Date.... 2011-02-27
Expiry Date.......... 2012-02-27
Admin Name........... Admin PrivateRegContact

The photo from the front page of the website was stolen from here: http://www.designswan.com/archives/15-breathtaking-panoramic-photos.html

Most of the text on the front page is likely stolen from here (a site that has been registered since 2005) http://chrisplantravel.com/villas-worldwide.html

Many of the villa descriptions are stolen from here, a site that has been registered for over 10 years:
http://www.luxuryretreats.com/Search.aspx?DestinationsIDs=7&RegionsIDs=102&BedMin=1&BedMax=50&PriceMax=999999999&PriceMin=0&CurrencySelector=1&flg=1&jfx=1&nav=1&PageNumb=2&srbid=5&nor=10

For example, look at La Jardin Olive--the scammers have copied the villa's real information, only they have lowered the price.

They intend to advertise rentals they don't own, then have deposits transferred into the accounts you set up. Then the money would be transferred to them, and when the victims report their losses to the police, you will look like the guilty party.

Stay far, far away from this one.

To add to the comments of others

No such company registered in Sweden. This is the Swedish company registry.

http://www.allabolag.se/

Asking you to set up a company account suggests that they're going for a jackpot - either in number of cheques or amount. Banking counterfeit cheques or receiving stolen money into a personal account can get you into serious trouble with the police. To do it through a company account you've set up specifically for the purpose (even if innocently), would leave you in deep trouble and considerable debt.

Alternatively, or perhaps as well, they effectively want to get you to set up an entity in Australia that they can take over and use as a vehicle for scams. It's a very unusual request and hard to decide if they're being extra smart or extra stupid - as pushing you to take this proposition to a bank to examine makes it difficult to imagine it will work, but the possibilities would be mouth watering for a scammer if they pulled it off.

Of course, an obvious point is that a Swedish company website is going to be written in Swedish like the Swedish Company registry, as their main market will be Swedish customers but it's a brave and clever scammer who tries to do that. At the very least they'd have a Swedish language version.

Amusingly the address of this fictitious company is actually occupied by a company and its subsidiaries that are involved in the Swedish space industry. I didn't notice Mars as one of their holiday destinations.

Oh my god... I am a victim of this as well.. I have already opened a bank account under my name and created a business name!!! WHAT DO I DO???
They said that my first payment will be next week, should I wait to see if they pay me of should I just cut off all contact with them?

Hi naive9 !
Thank goodness you learned that this was a scam before you started cashing cheques!
Take a deep breath and then close the bank account. Cut off all contact with the scammer.

Don't beat yourself up over it naive9.

As someone who spent their whole life working for a bank before retirement I'm slightly amazed that the bank didn't pick it up, as they're supposed to be experts. so It wasn't just you who were fooled.

This is a very ambitious scam attempt by a 419 scammer, and pretty brazen stuff. It's frightening to think what they'll attempt next.

As Helen says, shut it all down naive9 and cut off contact. Certainly don't pass ony any details to them.

To other Scamwarners I'd mention that in the UK business managers are under pressure to open business accounts as they're income earners, but it shouldn't make them overlook basic checks and procedures. Perhaps scammers are attempting to take advantage of this, but the consequences of having access to a business account are frightening to consider.

I won't even speculate in the open and, of course, it's all going to land the victims in a nightmare world of trouble.

Hi,
just wanted to let you know, that my family also recieved this scam last week.
I'm very greatful for this site. A member searched and only found their fake website and thought it was legit, and started comunicating, luckily we kept searching and found these warnings and were able to put a stop to it before anything got bad!!
Its very shocking and I hope other people are very wary.
Thanks again!!!!

Welcome to ScamWarners flo1 We are pleased that this information was helpful to you and your family. Thank you for posting here. We are always glad to hear someone didn't send a scammer any money.

The fundamental of the scam involves manipulating you, and having already got you to open a bank account for them, you're under their control and committed, so the next phase is going to follow along naturally. It may just be getting you to convert counterfeit cheques (using your money) for them, but that only lasts as long as it takes for the first one to bounce.

It's possibe that they have something much more catastrophic in line for you. If they get control of that account, or can appear to have control, they can set up deals with other companies in your country using your credit rating and identity (that you've provided for them), making you a party to a major fraud, and spending you into horrendous debt.

It's a mistake to believe that these scammers have limits on what they'll try as they know they're safe and secure, and even if they're rumbled it all goes back to you, so they can afford to take risks and chances. Even if you don't allow them access to the account, they can still use you to provide credibilty to scams they operate within Australia. Often their scams fail when their accent is heard but by using you, they can get over that problem.

It's not that they're smart as I'm sure if I told one that they could get money out of an ATM by pressing numbers all day, they'd do it, but they're relentless and have no conscience whatsoever, which makes them very dangerous.