Darn, forgot to cut the check again. Photo: Carolos Muza
Ne'er a dull moment online. On Monday, March 18, I was contacted by phone text by “Mis. Emnet Mersha” who said she was from the CAE Inc. Group (that is, Canadian Aeronautics). She said she had found my resume on the Career-Builder database and wanted to interview me for a remote position for $55.60 an hour, following a week of training at $25.75 an hour. She referred me to Tom Hayden, a “hiring manager,” on Skype (live:tomhayden269) for a one-hour interview by phone text Tuesday afternoon. Happily, I passed the interview, and Hayden said he would email to me a copy of an employment letter in a day.
On Thursday, I received at my mailing address from FedEx a check for $4,928 written on First Horizon Bank. Hayden said I was to spend the check on software from a CAE vendor to use in my new job as a data entry clerk.
I deposited it Thursday afternoon in my Chase checking account. Chase put a hold on the check until April 1 “because of information we’ve received from the paying bank or due to information we have within our systems.” I reported this to Hayden.
On Friday morning, Hayden wrote: “Your working materials is [sic] currently ready as we speak and the head dept will need a little quarter from you. You’re required to make a partial payment to the vendor so they can start processing your working materials to your address.
“Note: you will be reimbursed first thing tomorrow morning along with your sign up bonus. I believe you will be able to handle this task?”
I replied: “Might it be easier for CAE to cancel the check and simply make a direct deposit into my account now? Chase is the country’s largest bank, and CAE one of its largest aeronautical firms. Surely they have a direct-deposit arrangement.
“And where is the employment letter?”
I never received a reply. I emailed CAE’s human resources department around Friday noon, asking it to verify employment of Mersha and Hayden. CAE Talent Acquisition replied: "This is a scam, this is not how we typically approach potential candidates. We will always clearly identify ourselves with contact information."
The mechanism for the scam was simple: I would pay Mersha and Hayden in exchange for a bad check. I reported the fraud to Chase.
The rise in online employment is a field day for the larcenous. Who is responsible for detecting fraud? The commercial banks say it’s the potential victim. But banks exist precisely because we trust them to ensure that our transactions, most of them with strangers, are honest. Otherwise, why not keep our money in a burglar-proof pillowcase? Banks like First Horizon, Wells Fargo, and even Chase should be more responsible for monitoring fraud than customers should be. -- Leon Taylor, Baltimore, tayloralmaty@gmail.com
For helpful comments, I thank but do not implicate Nicholas Baigent, Annabel Benson, and Mark Kennet.
