ianathome2

thanks Riffraff I didnt think of the ID theft the scammer could perform with the CVs as was initially concerned with making sure the ads were down and all victims were aware of the scam. That is a very good point and I will make everyone we are aware of aware of the potential for ID theft. Cheers for pointing that out BTW if you do call the digital fraud number you do get through to someone who will take down details. It is an initial admin exercise but I believe that the more people who report the scam the more chance there is of it being investigated. FYI I have also registered this on the BBC watchdog website

no we havent been hacked but it is quite easy to appropriate a real company directors name, company address (which are both publicaly available at companies house) and then make up a false (but similar) email address to correspond with people, too easy by the looks of it. All correspondence through that email was with the scammer and he went to the trouble to write back to people and pretend to interview them for the role. I wouldn't have had any idea this was going on until people started calling up wondering why "I" hadnt returned their calls or supplied them with goods to sell on ebay. Unfortunately job boards operate under a buyer beware system so this sort of thing is going to happen again again that's why I have spent the past 48 hours tracking down the job adverts in my name and any reference to them to inform people it is a scam. Some poor people have been completely taken in but luckily no one seems to have gone that final stage and forked out any money to the scammer. If we can make spread the word it will hopefully make it harder for the scammer to do it again under a different guise. My advice to anyone reading this is to always call a recruitment company (or anyone offering this sort of deal) on a landline and speak to them. It isnt foolproof but makes it that much harder for the average scammer to get away with it. Hope that helps?

Hi I am the real director of the real recruitment company whose identity the fraudster has hijacked so can confirm that it is a con, a very sophisticated one as you are taken through a recruitment process via email, approved (funny that) and then sent a contract signed by my doppelganger with our company details on. As we exist, people check us out and see that everything appears legit. If you know anyone else who has been conned please let me know and I will let you have my details to send info too as we are putting a case together to support the police investigation. It looks like there were at least 50 adverts out there with up to 15 applicants per advert. could be looking at a £500K swindle. The fraudster even had the cheek to reply back to me when I told him we were on to him and to stop using my name.