Zip Recruiter Imposter

Victim Location 79410

Type of a scam Employment

After a short & meaningless interview, I was told I was hired, the pay and benefits I would be receiving and that I would get all the materials I needed to set up my office.

They e-mailed a check to me for $1,000 on the account of Aflofarm Pharmaceuticals (which is in Poland). This was to buy a computer and work materials to set up my home office. They asked me to deposit the check on my mobile banking app which I did. The rush was to be set up by Monday so I could go right to work.

I called back today (Saturday) to get instructions for ordering the equipment. He asked me to go to Walmart and purchase $900 in ITunes gift cards (red flag!) so that when my computer is delivered on Monday, they will use the keys on the cards to unlock the software already installed on the computer.

Walmart told me this was a scam and that they could not process the transaction. I also called the Lubbock Texas police department and they told me that they have been having a rash of these schemes involving ITunes cards.

I was corresponding with him via Google Hangouts by the messaging app (which I thought was OK since the company was in Poland and maybe they wanted everything in writing) but when I got to Walmart and told him they would not do the transaction he called me on the phone and it sounded like he had a Jamaican accent, definitely not Polish. The name he told me was Jason Winterman. So, since I couldn’t get the ITunes cards, he asked me to just transfer the $ from my bank account to the vendor that was going to deliver the computer. I told him I couldn’t do that until the check had cleared my account. Haven’t heard back from him.

They have a pretty elaborate set up.