Victim Location 94112
Total money lost $1,012
Type of a scam Employment
I searched for remote jobs and the website dice.com came up among the first results on Google. I applied for a remote administrative position offered by Aquirion Investment. After a few days I received a response from a person at the company that my application is being considered. I was asked to answer some general questions when one normally applies for a job and send my resume. I was offered the position soon after and given the first assignment in the same email as my job offer.
I was asked to prepare a research paper on cryptocurrency. I did and was congratulated on the fact that I did a good job on it. In the next email my "manager" told me that she will travel to Ecuador. The day after I was mailed a check. During the application I was confirmed that I will be paid $475 + bonus, via check or cashier check and will be mailed weekly.
The check I received was for $1975. I did not receive instructions beforehand on what the money should be used for; I did not know that I will receive such a huge amount. I was urged to deposit the check as soon as possible and pressed with questions over email on when the check is going to be posted.
I confirmed with the company when the check was posted. The instructions came in: I was asked to purchase two $500 prepaid cards from Walgreens and send them the pictures along with the receipts.
As soon as I sent the company the pictures of both cards, I had a debit transaction of $1975 from my checking account. This means that they might have put a stop payment on the original check and I was -1000 in my account for the purchased prepaid cards.