Job Scam on LinkedIn

I was contacted yesterday by a women on LinkedIn. She claims she is the Human Resource Manager at Sumitomo Rubber Industries located in Japan. (Her profile says that she is the CEO of the company but the header says Human Resource Manager...?)

She continues to tell me that the company would like to contract me to collect past due payments from clients in North America( where I am from) promising a high monthly salary and 5% commission on every debt I collected
.
Following this, I replied, "thank you for contacting me, I am really interested and would love to learn more about this." (not knowing about employment scams until finding this forum)

I was then asked for personal information. (Name, address, phone number, photo ID. I gave her my name, address and phone number but was hesitant to send a scan of my ID, so I did not)

I was never asked to give exact banking info, only what financial institute I was with. This is what really got me thinking. So I decided to do some more research to find out if this person was actually who they said they were.

My research found that the company she claimed to be with does actually exist. It is a multi mullion dollar company based in Japan, est. over 100 years ago with warehouses around the world. So I decided to contact the company directly to find out if this person has any connection to them.

The response I got from the company was as follows,

" Thank you for your following inquiry. In our company, Mrs. Kim C*** does not exist. We have nothing to do with this matter, so please ignore the email from Mrs. Kim C***. Sincerely, H******* I****, Human Resources & General Affairs Dept."

Thankfully I did not give any banking or credit card information as this was now an obvious scam to either get me to send money to somewhere, or to launder money for other scammers.

Welcome to Scamwarners,

Please provide the name and email address the scammer used. There is no need to protect the scammer/thief.

Also post the email you received. This will help others avoid the scammer.

First Email received:

Mrs Kim Chow
Human Resource Manager at Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd

We wish to contract you to "Represent" our company in America/Canada, please advise.

Sincerely,
Mrs kim chow
Human Resource Manager.

Second email and my first response: (My response is after the second email)

Mrs Kim Chow
Human Resource Manager at Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd

Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.
3-6-9 Wakinohama-cho,
Chuo-ku, Kobe,
Hyogo 651-0072, Japan
Tel: +81-3-4530-4611
Fax: +81-3-6717-1411
http://www.srigroup.co.jp/
Greetings ,
My name is Mrs kim chow I am the Human Resource Manager to (Ikuji Ikeda) of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. We are in need of a Reputable Company/Individual in America/Canada that can act as our Company sales/payment representative (Intermediary between Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. and its clients in the North America region).Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.,first and foremost would like to thank you for considering our offer to be the company's representative in your region,we decide to contract you after carefully study your profile as experience ,honest and resourceful , By assisting Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. to communicate and also retrieval of overdue payments from our customers/clients who are located in your region. We have clients from your region that has not meet up with the normal payment schedule of 30 days after confirming the delivery of products sent to them in good condition. Based on research and past experience we have discovered that having a representative in the same region with our clients, it becomes very easy for them to comply and pay in due time. This is why we require representatives in your region who can easily communicate with our customers.

It is as a result of the above we decided to appoint a reliable representative overseas who will now serve as medium of sales/payment and have direct dealing with our clients on our behalf. We confirm in good faith that we are ready to work with you and also we must let you know that any payment made to you on behalf of our company, you shall earn 5% of every payment and also we would place you on a monthly salary of 2,000.00USD to 5,000.00USD based on agreement,
you are not only making money for yourself,you are also helping thousands of people around the world in need of good quality products from us.if you are willing and ready to assist our company without any illegal act.

Once again, Your area of specialization is of no reference as regards been our sales/payment representative. Been experienced in this field is also a credit to you. Please do not hesitate to get back to us if you require further details and I hope this message finds you well.

Mrs kim chow
Human Resources manager
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.
http://www.srigroup.co.jp/

On 5/26/15, 12:08 PM, My First Response:
--------------------
Thank you for your interest. I am very interested and would love to learn more about this.

Third Email:

Mrs Kim Chow
Human Resource Manager at Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd

Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.
3-6-9 Wakinohama-cho,
Chuo-ku, Kobe,
Hyogo 651-0072, Japan
Tel: +81-3-4530-4611
Fax: +81-3-6717-1411
http://www.srigroup.co.jp/
Greetings ,

Greetings,

Your email has been received and we appreciate your interest in representing our firm in your local area. We shall immediately commence with the process of verifying your details to enable us get to the other step of providing you with the Memorandum of Understanding outlining your activities.

To begin, Furnish me with the below details so that i can open a file in your name,while i make enquiry from the account/reconciliation dept for the list of overdue clients which we contact or you contact for payment.Please note that i have also attached a copy of our company Job description along this mail so i will want you to go and and then send your response along with your details.

Full names:
Company Name:
Position:
Full Contact address:
State/Country:
ZIP CODE.
Tel/Fax:
Cell Phone Number(s):

Any form of Id Card:(Scan Driver licence accepted)

I hope the above stated term is clear for your comprehension.

I await your response

Mrs Mrs kim chow
Human Resources manager
Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.
http://www.srigroup.co.jp/

This is when I realized something was wrong. So, I decided to do some research to try and link this person to the company. After no luck finding anything, aside from their LinkedIn profile I decided to contact the company directly.

Email to and from Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. (Their response is first followed by my initial inquiry)

Hironari Izumi ([email protected])

28/05/2015

To: **********@live.ca Cc: Takayuki Shibata

[email protected]

Dear Mr. ***** **** (* are used to protect my identity)

Thank you for your following inquiry.

In our company, Mrs. Kim Chow does not exist.

We have nothing to do with this matter, so please ignore the email from Mrs. Kim Chow .

Sincerely,

Hironari Izumi,

Human Resources & General Affairs Dept.

Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd.
-----------------------------------------------------------
'Hi there I wanted to inquire about a message I had received via LinkedIn It was from a Mrs. Kim Chow and she was offering me a contract position with your company After looking around I can not find any connection between this person and your company Before giving any information I would like to know for sure that this person is in fact employed by your company
Thank you'

Removed (BW)

Hope this helps anyone out there currently going through the same or similar situations.
The email that the person used was: [email protected]

I updated this post with the actual email conversation and how to get someone's IP address to track its origin.
Subject is: Job scam LinkedIn Updated

^^^ Thank you.

Thanks for posting! The writing is West African, not Japanese, and the scammer apparently doesn't know Japanese from Chinese.

HI: I recently received a lucrative job opportunity via Linkedin to become a collection agent for a Japanese steel firm. It would have paid me roughly $225 CDN per hour, plus a commission. I'm worth a lot, but not sure that much. Did a little digging around and found this thread. The wording in my offer is almost exactly the same as "sonline" received in May of 2015. I used the process provided to decode the eMail header and found that the message originated in Novosibirsk, Russia. I have included the text of the email and the eMail Header Analysis below.

Hello Terry.

Thank you for your prompt response. In My previous email, I gave you a brief summary of our company and what we do. This e-mail explains the position we are looking to partner with you.

REPRESENTATIVE OPPORTUNITY:

With our full range of products. Due to high demand and customer overdue payments, we seek competent Individuals and Companies to act as our representatives in their respective location (USA and Canada). Based on research and past experience we have discovered that having representatives in the same region with our customers makes it very easy for them to comply and pay in due time. To this effect, the company board has resolved we engage in the recruitment of Representatives who can easily communicate with our customer via email and telephone and act as our Agents in the retrieval of these overdue Invoices.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Main Job description includes assisting Tsukamoto Hiro CO.,LTD to communicate and also in the retrieval of overdue payments from our customers/clients who are located in the North America region. We have clients all over this region that is yet to meet up with the normal payment schedule of 30 days after confirming the delivery of products sent to them in good condition. Note: This is a part time opportunity and you do not need to leave your current job, this take less than one hour of your time daily.

COMMISSION AND COMPENSATION:

We confirm that we are ready to work with you with an annual base fee of $45,000.00 USD (For Individual Representation; representing us as an Individual) and $60,000 USD (For company Representation; Representing us with or as a company). This will be paid monthly in the sum of $3750 and $5000 for individual and company representation respectively.

You shall also earn a 4% commission (Individual Representation) and 7% commission (Corporate/Company representation) from any owed amount retrieved through you on behalf of the company as our representative to cover for phone, Internet and Miscellaneous bills.

SKILLS REQUIRED:

Corporate Communication
Record Keeping

As soon as you acknowledge and indicate interest in working with us, we shall be providing you with the necessary details as to our approval process. Thank you and waiting to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Naoyuki Katsuro,
Hr Director |Tsukamoto Hiro CO.,LTD,
Email:[email protected]
12-1,9-chome, Kameido, Koto-kum, Tokyo 137-8555 Japan.
http://www.tsukamotohiro.com/
機密性警告：このメッセージおよび添付ファイルは、受信者向けのものであり、機密情報であることにご注意ください。 意図した受信者でない場合は、すぐに返


Email header analysis report
All valid IP Addresses found in the header.
Ip Address 3rd Party Info Provider City Flag Country
* 77.88.28.100 Check 77.88.28.100 at Senderbase.org Check 77.88.28.100 at Reputationauthority.org Novosibirsk Russian Federation

*Probable originating IP address

Header Analysis

Originating Info

Originating IP address: 77.88.28.100

Originating hostname: forward100p.mail.yandex.net

Originating Organization: Yandex LLC

Originating Country: Russian Federation

Originating City: Novosibirsk


77.88.28.100
Novosibirsk, Russian Federation