Company Representative scams, Payment Processing scams and other Employment scams.
#328506 by Sailingbar Fri May 19, 2017 9:34 am
I have very recently been scammed by Promena Auction Solutions. They shorten it to PAS. They have you sign an employment agreement and have it notarized, ask you a lot of questions then hire you to do a web assistant job. In the employee agreement you agree to use your own Paypal account for training purposes. You go through a month of training and then you are to get paid for the trainining in one lump sum.

If you do your due diligence you will find a beautiful Promena website, blog, linked in profile and Capterra Review on Promena. There are testimonials and they actually have a free trial for a client to try their software package that makes procurement and auctions much easier and transparent. This is all set up to scam you! I emailed and talked to 3 different people during my training. I questioned things and got answers that made sense to me....I still was scammed out of $13K. Paypal has already told me that I owe it to them.
However...in order to make the scam work...the scammers hacked into EBAY and then had a way of getting around PayPal's funds availability process. So there are problems with their own processes but I have to totally pay for this scam.

Heartbreaking. Thanks for listening and I hope this saves someone else from doing the same thing that I did.
Sailing Bar
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#336776 by Librascythe Tue Aug 15, 2017 1:14 am
Hello sorry to hear that you are forced to pay up for this scam.

But I am commenting to ask how they actually manage to do this scam?
I have an email from them, and have gone through the steps next is the "training" in a week, I can't see the end game for these guys, so I'm curious about how they actually make money off from you so I can lookout for more in the future.
#336777 by AlanJones Tue Aug 15, 2017 1:19 am
Sailingbar wrote:In the employee agreement you agree to use your own Paypal account for training purposes.


You are responsible for any transactions that go through your PayPal account. If you receive the money on this fake company's behalf and they don't ship the items then it is you that is responsible for the money and PayPal will come after you for the money when the buyers reverse the transactions.

Please do not tell scammers that they are listed here - it will take them seconds to change their fake details and their new details will not be listed for any future victims to find.
#337090 by Librascythe Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:50 am
I have never gotten a reply back from the promena.net site either. I have sent 3 emails.

Replies back from the contact is sparse right now as their excuse is human resources is expanding.

I could post the email address I have or should i make a new topic?

But yes looking back over the contract there is a part of transferring money.
#337255 by Librascythe Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:44 am
Okay sorry about the wait.

Here is the signature off from the emails.

Jacob Barragan
Recruiting Manager
Promena US
(206)-338-0797

[email protected] ATTN: Jacob Barragan or Jane Salinas
[email protected] for financial inquiries only


The career email is the one I have been in contact with.

Here is a media fire link with the attachments.
Including, job description, brochure, job contract that needs notarized, and copy of my emails in works.

Removed link (BW)

As another note I sent an email a couple weeks back to the career one asking to make sure they got the contract and haven't seen anything back from them, or any other emails to move forward since the 23rd is this week.
#338083 by vonpaso xlura Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:39 pm
promena-hr.com is a one-year email-only domain registered by hidden. Please post the email from the domain with complete headers so that we can kill it.

promena.net is 16 years old and almost certainly legitimate, though it's in Turkish, which I don't know, so I can't be completely sure.

... ni los estafadores heredarán el reino de Dios. 1 Cor. 6:10
#339021 by HelpPlease Mon Sep 11, 2017 5:34 am
I'm here for the same situation, I got scammed but not by Promena Auction Solutions.
I just want to ask @Sailingbar did you tell Paypal about the scam and what action did PayPal do about it?

can you give some details of what happened after? are you paying the $13K to PayPal?

I need some advice now. I'm really stressed and don't know what to do about it.
Please help.

Thank you
#339030 by HelpPlease Mon Sep 11, 2017 7:29 am
I applied for a job ad post and the employer/scammer said that I need to do a trial transaction then if I do good they will hire me. I was instructed to do the transaction in PayPal. Someone send money and then I transferred it as I was instructed to. I thought everything was ok after the transaction made but suddenly I received an email from PayPal that the buyer didn't receive the product, this is where I panicked and thought to my self that I got scammed. I messaged the employer about the dispute made by the buyer then suddenly he removed me from his contact.

I searched for the buyer's social account and message him and told him what happened. I didn't know about their transaction in eBay. The amount is $9500. I told him that I was a victim too. I don't want to get sued and end up in jail because of this. I'm just a student and earning small from my part-time job. I'm willing to give salary in my part time job for years just to pay it off, but I don't know if the buyer will accept my offer to pay him.

Please help, my PayPal is in dispute right now and has -$9500 in it and the buyer is not yet escalating it. I don't know what to do and to tell to PayPal.

I'm really stressed right now, I can't eat and sleep, I'm crying every time I think of what situation I'm in right now. Advice please
#339032 by AlanJones Mon Sep 11, 2017 7:32 am
It appears that you have received money from someone in PayPal as part of an eBay transaction that you say you know nothing about. And then sent that money on to someone else. Unfortunately, as far as PayPal are concerned you have received money that the sender says was part of a fraudulent transaction.

You require proper (paid for) legal advice, we can not help you with the situation that you are in.

Please do not tell scammers that they are listed here - it will take them seconds to change their fake details and their new details will not be listed for any future victims to find.
#339274 by Librascythe Wed Sep 13, 2017 12:19 pm
Well after the start date came and went a week and I got another email with someone new.

"Hello, [DELETED NAME]


Hope you're having a good day!

We're back on track with the regular working schedule, and I truly appreciate your patience, I know you're eager to start and so are we!

As you already know, my name is Terry Watts, I am your supervisor and trainer for the probation period with Promena. I'm hear to cover you
when needed and to help you develop the necessary set of skills to be successful within the company and your career here. FYI, there is lots
of room for growth within the company and your probation period will give you a kickstart towards your further development with the company.

Now, I would like to thank you for submitting your paperwork, I am asusming you've discussed all the work-related issues with the HR but let
me know if there is anything you are still not clear about 'technically' - I'll see if I can be of any help.
I would like to point out the basics once again:
- your schedule is flexible within the 8am-8pm time frame, and this is your local time, be it EST, PST etc.
- your very first payment is a 160 or 80 paid hours and is due closer to the end of the probation period HOWEVER
- once you move from theory to practice you'll be able to earn commission instantly. Your commission can be as high as $300 every 3-4 days,
so be sure to dedicate yourself to our 'practical' working routine.
- you are expected to work from a spot of your preference, home office for instance; you're expected to communicate with me on daily
basis.
- it is an absolute requirement that you notify me of any vacations, sick leaves etc as ahead of time as possible so that I do not end up with
a busy work schedule for you in vain.

Most of my agents will inquire about taxes - your taxation paperwork will be mailed to you along with the direct deposit forms and other company
paperwork closer to the end of the probation period, because this is when the HR department wants to get you enrolled into automatic payroll, process
your web panel access information etc.

As a part of your commission-earning routine you will be dealing with billing procedures, and will therefore require an account of your choice to use
during the probation period. Please note that we are not requesting any sensitive information, but since you will be dealing with customer invoices and payments
it is required that you provide a Paypal or a bank account of your choice. If you do not have one, we will reimburse up to $75 for establishing a new account.



Please get back to me with:

1. Best date/time to start our training.
2. Best contact number and time as I will be calling to introduce myself personally.
3. Confirmation of your understanding of the above written.



Terry Watts
Supervising Sales Manager
Promena
US Department
"


I have been in contact with them where I asked about the money transfer duty listed. Here is the reply.

"Hello,


You will have a very flexible schedule that you can shape around and adjust yourself, however if you ask about my preference, I would say spend morning hours working with us, and make it at least 3 hours per day, although the 1pm you're mentioning here will work as well. This is enough time to take care of a task or work on the training, and it also leaves you room if more hours are needed for the specific task.

Promena as your employer is doing your taxes and you get your W-2 with the taxes deducted.
As for 'money transfer' - if you are familiar with the billing clerk basic duties, this is what you would be doing as a part of your job. You're going to invoice the clients, work with delinquent payments, process advance payments, do payouts to order executors etc."


I then asked something my aunt suggested about checking their paypal account, so I asked for their email they side stepped the question. They also side stepped my questions about their company "Is there a physical location for the US branch of Promena in the US or will there be? Or would I be employed from the Turkish branch, and in which case how would I go about doing my taxes?"

"Hello,


If you are not aware of what Paypal is, you will learn about it more during one of our training sessions. Do you have a bank account you'll be able to use during work?"


I then asked why I need a bank account for work, and I haven't gotten any replies back since 8 days ago.
I have just sent an email stating I will not be using any of my accounts for any work transactions and I will not be accepting money that is not my paycheck.

So has anyone been able to dig up if they are a scam or not? Or had an experience with them aside from the starting post?
#339275 by AlanJones Wed Sep 13, 2017 12:31 pm
Librascythe wrote:So has anyone been able to dig up if they are a scam or not?


The original post and reply from HelpPlease makes it clear that it is a scam - why else would they have been left owing PayPal $13k and 9.5k respectively? No legitimate company would ask employees to receive money for company business into a personal bank account or PayPal account. They also wouldn't sidestep reasonable questions from would be employees.

Please do not tell scammers that they are listed here - it will take them seconds to change their fake details and their new details will not be listed for any future victims to find.

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