Novavax

Kristine –

Victim Location 07114

Total money lost $2,000

Type of a scam Employment

My boyfriend applied for a position at Novavax through indeed. This position was a work from home customer service position. He received correspondence from someone claiming to be Jill Hoyt (an HR manager of Novavax) to schedule an online phone interview with a verifiable number/confirmation number. He was "interviewed" online and offered the position within an hour of the interview. It was stated that they needed the position filled as soon as possible so they doing same day job offerings.They sent an offer letter and w4 to be filled and sent back to them. He was given a name and time for training which was going to be Monday-Saturday from 9am. Everything seemed legitimate up until that point.

He was also told that the equipments that were going to be needed for the job would be provided by the company (Novavax), except a day later, the said "Jill Hoyt" asked that he made a payment (to a vendor) for the software (time tracker) necessary for the company to track time worked. At this point I had taken over the interaction between Jill Hoyt and my boyfriend. I told her it sounded like a scam for any company to want a new hire to pay for something that was needed to work for them. The initial agreement was that, they were going to send the computer to his home address the next day, only for her to get back later and say the weather was not feasible to make a shipment so it would be sent out on Monday instead.

The conversation to get the software occurred on Saturday, after the offer of employment had been made. The software apparently cost $612.00. When I told her I could not afford the $612 she said I could make a minimum payment as a sign of good faith. I said I could only make a $50.00 payment to which the response was that, it was too little and the minimum amount that could be paid was $312.00. Whoever was on the other end, made claims that they were indeed Jill Hoyt and did not like that I was calling an honest, hardworking person a scammer. I then asked that we speak on phone just to ease the skepticism. She said she was unable to talk at that moment.

Eventually, she said that she could have the accountant issue a check in his name to pay the vendor directly for the computer and software. The only thing was that he had to go buy a business check, print the check, and deposit. We did all that and she said in order for her to trust him, she needed to see a receipt of the deposit which he eventually did. He received a check for $3,200.

On Monday morning, she messaged him back asking if the check had cleared to which he responded that it had not. She asked to be notified as soon the funds were available for further instructions. On Tuesday morning, after the funds became available, she provided a name and account number, claiming that was the vendor and for him to make a transfer. When he got to the bank, he was told by the teller, the name "Lamar Cook" was not the account holder. My boyfriend then sent a message to her telling her the name on the account was wrong. The response was that he leave the bank immediately and go his car to await further instructions. This was an unexpected response to say the least. She then said that she would send instructions and also for him to find a Walmart closest to him and do the wire transfer. His response was that she let him know what was going on because he was being questioned at the bank. She responded that if he, "had followed the instructions she gave him he wouldn’t have been questioned by the bank. And also the bank was still asking questions because he was breaching the company’s privacy policy and that was in no certain terms a terminable offense".

She later provided a completely different name for the money to be transferred to. Not wanting to hold on to that money anymore, he went back to the bank and transferred the money to the new name and account provided. And rescinded the job offer after that. He told "Jill Hoyt" he was no longer interested in the position. She said it was a misunderstanding, apologized for the mistake (in name) and said it would not happen again and that it was the last thing he had to do to start work. He still refused the job.

On Wednesday though, she came back again with a story of how there was a change in software prices, so they were going to issue an another check to pay for the difference. To which he responded that the company should have known of the changes before he had to do all that running around before and that we was not interested in working for the company anymore.

On Thursday, 8/9/18, I personally called the Novavax company on the number provided on their website – (240) 268-2000. I spoke to a person by the name Carol and she said they had gotten many calls like that over the past week. She transferred me to the recruitment personnel’s office. No one answered the phone so I left a message asking to be called back as soon as possible because my boyfriend was a victim of a scam involving the company. No one has returned my call at this point.

Today Saturday, 8/11/18, my boyfriend checked his account (the one he had transferred the money from) and it was overdrawn by over $2,000.