Virtual Assistant - The Virtual Agent Ltd.

This is convincing. At first they send me an email and I replied saying that they should be honest and get a life..and I got this reply:


From: Amanda Sanders ([email protected])

Good afternoon,

And thank you for your interest in the Virtual Assistant position with The Virtual Agent Ltd! We are a team of experienced virtual assistants with the head office in London, UK, and employees in all major European countries! Due to the recent increase in the number of clients, we're looking for new Virtual Assistants to join our staff.

What Do Virtual Assistants Do?

Virtual Assistants perform the same roles and activities online as personal assistants do to individuals, businesses and especially disabled persons. We do NOT sell anything, advertise or actually pick up groceries or laundry for the clients and meet them in person. Typical tasks for Virtual Assistants may include the following:

- Managing email correspondence: sorting and answering messages;
- Booking tickets, scheduling appointments, arranging meetings;
- Performing Internet research on locations, services, products;
- Transcribing voice/video recordings, typing and editing texts;
- Assisting with billing, sending out payments, delivering bills, etc.

Since a person in this position will be working from home, they will need to have a computer with the access to the Internet; however, no special software is required for purchasing, standard office programs and a default web browser would be sufficient. In order to work as a Virtual Assistant, one must also have a working phone number, which can be used for job-related calls.

Typical Work Day of a Virtual Assistant

Virtual Assistant shifts take 4-6 hours and start at 9am GMT, Monday to Friday; we are closed on weekends and national holidays. A typical day starts with logging into the corporate website and receiving a list of tasks for the day. Each Virtual Assistant is assigned to a supervisor, who provides instructions and any additional information or materials needed for the completion of the tasks. A supervisor will call Virtual Assistants and monitor their activities during the day; by the end of the day Virtual Assistants prepare a short report on the completed tasks and send it to the supervisor and log off.

Compensation and Benefits

We offer a base salary of 31,800 GBP per year paid monthly. In addition to the guaranteed fixed salary we also offer flexible bonuses based on your individual performance and clients' feedback. In other words, if you successfully perform your tasks, manage to meet deadlines, assist multiple clients and they highly evaluate your services, you are eligible for bonuses up to 25 of the monthly pay. We also offer paid holidays, sick pay and overtime compensation as well as an opportunity to get relocated to our head office, if you demonstrate outstanding results and performance.

To apply for the Virtual Assistant position, please reply to my message and let me know when you would be available to get started; we're most interested in candidates available to start immediately. I will forward you the employment documentation for review as well as answer your questions. Please note that neither our company, nor our affiliates require any entry fees, investments or other payments in order to ensure the employment!

---
Best regards,
Amanda Sanders
The Virtual Agent Ltd.
Phone: +44 020 3290 4905

====================================================
Tried to call, machine answer asking you to say an extension. Quite convincing.
Their website also convincing and found them on http://companycheck.co.uk/company/08811680
The website: http://www.virtualagentltd.com/contact/index.html
With complete address
The Virtual Agent Ltd.
Phone: +44 (0)20 3290 4905
Email: [email protected]
Mailing Address: 44 Upper Mulgrave Rd, Sutton, Greater London SM2 7AJ, United Kingdom
Work Hours: 9AM-5PM GMT
Company Reg.No.: 08811680
Address which they stole from: http://www.roberteprice.co.uk

[AlanJones]

Their website also convincing and found them on http://companycheck.co.uk/company/08811680
Company Reg.No.: 08811680

Potentially, the company The Virtual Agent Ltd (08811680) could be a legitimate company whose identity has been stolen by the scammers - I am not able to tell for certain as the company was only set up in December and there is therefore no financial details available to see if they are actually trading. However, the sole director of the company has a history of being a director of a number of companies that goes back to 2002.

Address which they stole from: http://www.roberteprice.co.uk

This is a firm of accountants and it is not uncommon and totally legal for small companies who have no need for their own office to use their accountant's address as their registered office.

As I'm sure you're aware (so I repeat for the benefit of others), no company in the Western World will employ a person involved in:-

- Assisting with billing, sending out payments, delivering bills, etc.

based on an email exchange over the internet.

Companies are legally obliged to identify their employees and that they have a legal right to work in the UK and you should never pass ID documentation over the internet. There is also the matter of CRB checks and taking up references.

Getting a job of any sort nowadays is tough and, if it appears too easy, the first thing to do is protect yourself and question why the employer is unwilling to meet you in person.

I recieved the same e-mail.
Now they know my name,adress and bank information =( What I must do,to avoid problems?

[AlanJones]

^^^ Speak to your bank urgently and advise them that you have inadvertently given your bank details to criminals and are worried that fraudulent deposits might be made to your account.

Hi,

I've received the same e-mail. Did someone else contacted them any further? Is this really a scam?

Cheers,
Miguel

Please post the email with complete headers so that we can kill the domain. It was registered only five days ago, for only one year, and the job description matches known descriptions of scam jobs.

From: Amanda Sanders <[email protected]>
Subject: Virtual Assistant: Start Working This Week

Good afternoon,

And thank you for your interest in the Virtual Assistant position with The Virtual Agent Ltd! We are a team of experienced virtual assistants with the head office in London, UK, and employees in all major European countries! Due to the recent increase in the number of clients, we're looking for new Virtual Assistants to join our staff.

What Do Virtual Assistants Do?

Virtual Assistants perform the same roles and activities online as personal assistants do to individuals, businesses and especially disabled persons. We do NOT sell anything, advertise or actually pick up groceries or laundry for the clients and meet them in person. Typical tasks for Virtual Assistants may include the following:

- Managing email correspondence: sorting and answering messages;
- Booking tickets, scheduling appointments, arranging meetings;
- Performing Internet research on locations, services, products;
- Transcribing voice/video recordings, typing and editing texts;
- Assisting with billing, sending out payments, delivering bills, etc.

Since a person in this position will be working from home, they will need to have a computer with the access to the Internet; however, no special software is required for purchasing, standard office programs and a default web browser would be sufficient. In order to work as a Virtual Assistant, one must also have a working phone number, which can be used for job-related calls.

Typical Work Day of a Virtual Assistant

Virtual Assistant shifts take 4-6 hours and start at 9am GMT, Monday to Friday; we are closed on weekends and national holidays. A typical day starts with logging into the corporate website and receiving a list of tasks for the day. Each Virtual Assistant is assigned to a supervisor, who provides instructions and any additional information or materials needed for the completion of the tasks. A supervisor will call Virtual Assistants and monitor their activities during the day; by the end of the day Virtual Assistants prepare a short report on the completed tasks and send it to the supervisor and log off.

Compensation and Benefits

We offer a base salary of 31,800 GBP per year paid monthly. In addition to the guaranteed fixed salary we also offer flexible bonuses based on your individual performance and clients' feedback. In other words, if you successfully perform your tasks, manage to meet deadlines, assist multiple clients and they highly evaluate your services, you are eligible for bonuses up to 25 of the monthly pay. We also offer paid holidays, sick pay and overtime compensation as well as an opportunity to get relocated to our head office, if you demonstrate outstanding results and performance.

To apply for the Virtual Assistant position, please reply to my message and let me know when you would be available to get started; we're most interested in candidates available to start immediately. I will forward you the employment documentation for review as well as answer your questions. Please note that neither our company, nor our affiliates require any entry fees, investments or other payments in order to ensure the employment!

---
Best regards,
Amanda Sanders
The Virtual Agent Ltd.
Phone: +44 020 3290 4905

[AlanJones]

Is this really a scam?

Yes it is definitely a scam - they want you to launder the proceeds of crime for them. When this is discovered, it will be you that is investigated by the authorities and has their bank account frozen. The scammers will be safe behind the anonymity of Western Union.

Just detlete the email and don't bother replying to them - there is no job.

virtualagentltd.com is in the process of being reported for fraud.

This is a firm of accountants and it is not uncommon and totally legal for small companies who have no need for their own office to use their accountant's address as their registered office.

According to the website, The Virtual Agent offers accounting services. It does not make sense for a company that offers accounting services to use someone else as an accountant.

I was recently contacted by 'Amanda Novak' from Virtual Assistant Workshop with a near identical email. Checked the website out - vaworkshop.co.UK and the the company is listed on companies house. obvious scam as they want you to send money via western union.

Few people are aware of this but a bank can shut an account at anytime without any need to give a reason, and they'll rarely give one.

Obviously if you've been laundering funds through your account as a 'money mule' they will close your account, possibly even before you receive your first payment, but definitely the first time a victim reports your account to the police.

Even fewer people are aware that just by clearing funds through your account for a third party it is a breach of the account mandate, and on that basis alone your account can be closed. The money going through your account should all belong to you, otherwise you are effectively using your account for business purposes thereby technically misusing your account and fraudulently avoiding payment of the business tariff.

If a person has been duped in to acting as a money mule they can understandably be very upset when their account is closed by the bank but, the trouble and grief caused to the bank is considerable and, if the bank didn't close the account it could itself be liable for any payments after it is first alerted to the account being used to launder funds.

The most common frauds depend on a simple fact a scammer has learned that he can exploit that is not widely known - you don't pay other people's money through your bank account, and there's no such thing as a job that pays you to do that.

vaworkshop.co.uk has the same template as virtualagentltd.com and is in the process of being reported for fraud.

Please post the emails you received from the site. Include complete headers, except for your name and address.

[AlanJones]

Virtual Assistant Workshop Ltd was registered in mid March and again the address used is that of a firm of accountants.

Unfortunately, because the company is so new there is no way to know if this is a shell company set up to add legitimacy to the scam or a legitimate company whose details are being used by the scammers.