Job Discussion Forums

[kiefer]

Brother. Scam artists have done a poor man's hacking of the UAE Ministry of Labour Site. I'll try to let them know. Maybe they'll investigate.

It's a clever scam. I'll give them credit.

Check out the legitimate site:
http://www.mol.gov.ae

And the scam artists site:
http://www.uaeministryoflabour.tk/

Notice how the favicon in the address bar changes from the UAE icon to the TK icon.

It's not that hard to accomplish actually. They went to
[url] http://www.dot.tk/en/index.html?lang=en [/url]
and entered the MOL domain name to use the dot tk to point to it. One would hope that the UAE government might be concerned that this has been done.

There are no jobs available on the MOL site. But it does give the job vacancy ad an appearance of credibility. I imagine a person none the wiser would feel confident enough to contact the Email address posted alongside the ad which uses the dot tk pointer (that brings up the real MOL site).

From another ESL job site (which has been contacted and alerted to the scam) is this contact:
[email protected]
.tk is not a UAE government Email address suffix!!!!
If you have time, please send them a terse Email filled with colorful expletives.
Do not send these guys any information. Ignore their ad.

[boomerang_kid]

Kiefer,


I believe you've uncovered the same guys we discussed earlier (last month) at "Global Recruiters Scam Redux". It is the "sticky" in the UAE discussion queue (just above this topic). The direct link for it is:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=58448&sid=46babd58c4d5eacac4dbcd027278a2ad

Are these the same Global Recruiter guys?

If so, I think this topic should be collapsed into the other one, since it is a continuation of their ongoing (but successful-) scam, and the history of this earlier discussion might be useful (so we won't have to "discover" the same things again).

[kiefer]

Boomerang,
I am sure it is the same group. It's the exact same package.

How does one collapse a topic? Notify the Mods?

I phoned it into Gulf News and they seem interested in the story, especially since the scammers are using a pointer to UAE ministries.

Gulf News would like to hear from someone who has been taken in by them.

Anyone who has, if you would like to correspond with the local paper, PM me with your Email address and I'll put you in touch with a Gulf News reporter who's researching the story.

[boomerang_kid]

000

[boomerang_kid]

[boomerang_kid]

Please pardon me for posting on top of my own prior posting, but I've just spent 2 hours googling for the term "4400USD", which appears consistently in each of these scam job listings.


Here is what I have found (looking only at the first 40 or so items in a 350-item list):


A. EFL Employment sites still carrying the BOGUS U.A.E. MoL Announcement (i.e., they don't know it's bogus, or don't care):

1. http://www.hirefire.org/job_details.aspx?jobid=JMYLEEK


2. http://jobsin.build-reciprocal-links.com/jobs-in-united-arab-emirates/dubai-jobs/79004-teacher-required-4400-usd-esl-offer-in-dubai-united-arab-emirates.html


3. http://www.joeysesl.com/viewJob.php?jobid=9


4. http://tesljobs.com/viewjob.php?id_job=605
This one was posted 2 Feb 2008: Using a new scam address: [email protected] (Already 40 people had viewed this new SCAM !!!)


5. http://esljobster.com/index.php?loc=Dubai
(The older scam from October 2007 is still posted here !!!)


6. http://tesol-india.ac.in/EnglishTeachingIndustry/search/node/4400usd
(Dear God! They have almost 100 copies of this scam, dating back to 8 December 2007 in their job offers queue. ALL of them come up when I search for the word �4400USD�.)


7. http://www.guestbook.ru/?user=NateJobLooking
(National Association of Teacher of English in Russia web site)
Posted on 20 Jan 2008 the scammers use: [email protected]

######################################

B. And these 2 websites are aware of the scam and trying to deal with it:

1. http://www.desertspeak.com/viewtopic.php?t=268
!!! Another group doing its own investigation of this hiring scam !!!


2. http://www.dxb.com/?p=160
Another discussion of this scam, on the Dubai website �Dubai Blog.�
It contains several VERY sad stories of those who were taken in by these *beep*.

########################

>>>>>>>> So, my question ,once again is: How can we, as teachers "get the word out" faster and more effectively, regarding scams, to our colleagues?

>>>>>>> Can't there be a "Scam Alert" system organized between EFL/ESL sites?

#########################[/i]

[boomerang_kid]

/
/
My apologies again, for posting right after my own posting, but this is important (and interesting):

Today I wrote to the "scam-meisters" at their new email address (UAEMinistry@ hotmail.com) which I mentioned in my last posting, above :

[mishmumkin]

Yahoo requires that you send the email header and contents of the email to report such a thing. If you've received an email from this group, please report it as "fraud".

[kiefer]

I see that the ad is no longer up on the Peeble's site. I'd written to them and reported abuse. Perhaps others did as well. Or maybe the ad just expired though I did not see it in the archives.

Let's keep doggedly pursuing them and reporting them to domain hosts and employment sites until they decide to take up a more locally grown Nigerian trade like "detaining" oil field ex-pat workers for ransom.

[boomerang_kid]

/
/

It took me the better part of an hour to do it, but I thoroughly reported this scam to both Hotmail and Yahoo, for both addresses:

[email protected]

............ and

[email protected]


I can easily understand why these guys don't get reported so quickly, either:
/
a.) You could see it was a scam, and you announced it on several teachers' forums, and now you don't care about it anymore; or,
/
b.) You got strung by these guys, and you don't want to talk about it at all.

>>>>>>> Can't we find (or found) some sort of central reporting site for this ? If they had used anything but Yahoo or Hotmail, I wonder how many hours it would have taken to report the Fraud (and how many days before someone read the report and acted on it).

>>>>> Just for fun, why not take 2 minutes to send a TEST message to both of the above addresses and see if they have been shut down?

######################

The Boomerang Kid
/
/

[kiefer]

I think Gulf News has decided to run a story on it. I was on the phone with them again today. If that happens, it'll be interesting to see how long those .tk pointers to the UAE ministries are up.

[veiledsentiments]

Thanks to both of you guys for following this up.

Great job!!

VS

[boomerang_kid]

/
After 24 hours, Yahoo has closed down their bogus address ...

[kiefer]

Think they'll regroup and counter-attack?

[boomerang_kid]

/

Kiefer,

Never speak of the Devil, because .....