Tuesday, April 26, 2011

What to do, when you get a suspect job offer letter?

Recently i came to know about a case where some one started coordination with a fresh graduate (i would call Mr. X) about a job contract. A Email was send with attached contract letter and Mr. X was asked to send a signed and scanned copy of offer letter along with scanned copies of passport and photographs. Email and contract letters were showed to be from Shell Company Malaysia. A lucrative package was offered as salary and benefits. Also some amount was mentioned for visa processing in contract letter but not demanded at the moment. 

Facts  in Case
  • Mr. X never applied for Shell Malaysia
  • He was never called for phone/online test/interview
  • Offered package was much more than normaly being offered in market
  • Mail senders were insisting for one day for document submission
Further investigation revealed
With these apparent points, Mr. X further investigated the issue and came to know that 
  • Domain used for Shell Malaysia (deducted from email) was proved fake as Shell official domain pointed to its domain in Malaysia, that was totally different
  • EMail of Malaysian man power ministry was provided the further cover the case
  • That domain (concluded from Email) was also proved fake as original Malaysian man power ministry website was found on Malaysian domain
Potential threats
This was terrible effort of disguise and fraud. It involved following major threats.
  • Signatures on scanned agreement were subject to potential misuse
  • Scanned photographs and passport may also be misused in very dangerous manner
  • With further home work and disguise Mr. X may be convinced to pay a suitable amount on behalf of case processing or documentation
What to do?
If you get any such agreement/ proposal from unconfirmed sources. Then try to confirm the origin of offer. You may easily verify the domains related to EMail used in whole coordination process. Try to talk on phone also. You may involve the related departments to get verification of suspect employer. And most important thing is that never ever expect that some one would issue you a job contract without any test/interview and without your application for that job. Be extremely conscious for over seas offers because that may be complex to verify and may result in great loss.

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