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I applied online for a job, but my profile does not involve my qualifications, only my age and my name.

The next day an email was sent to me by a company based in Florida. I was hesitant at first to accept the employment, but due to the crisis happening today I had no other choice but to give it a try. As I got through the final step and I already signed my employee contract.

I got a little suspicious because before I even got to start the job, they asked for me to pay through bitcoin for supplies that I will be needing for the work. Also, I am suspicious about why they would hire someone with no qualifications like me. They tried to reassure me that they are not scamming me, but I am still a bit suspicious.

Should I just trust them and give them money for the "supplies"?

Also, I did not know why I must send it in a currency like bitcoin. BTW, I live in the Philippines.

Machavity
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clefnote
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    What supplies are they buying? Can you not buy them yourself locally? There are many, many red flags that make this look incredibly risky. Don't send them anything that you can't afford to lose (because you likely will). – D Stanley Jun 11 '20 at 13:41
  • wait im going to send a copy of the supplies – clefnote Jun 11 '20 at 13:42
  • Office Related Supplies that needs to be purchased by you.
    • ComplyRight Payroll Change Notice Forms (AR0394) - Can be gotten on Amazon or Staples online
    • Company engraved printer paper
    • Special company glue
    • Company engraved mailing envelopes
     – clefnote Jun 11 '20 at 13:43
  • I tried to confront them and they said that they are not scamming me but still I got suspicious because of the bitcoin part. – clefnote Jun 11 '20 at 13:43
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    Not only that, there is seldom if ever a reason for companies to require you to buy supplies from them, with cash (or bitcoin) up front. And NO ONE is going to admit that they're trying to scam you. – jamesqf Jun 11 '20 at 16:14
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    Special company glue -- sounds like a joke I remember from my childhood. – mustaccio Jun 11 '20 at 22:02
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    They tried to reassure me that it is not a scam. ----- Number 1 indicator it IS a scam. – Yu Zhang Jun 12 '20 at 00:23
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    Even if this isn't a scam, any company that tries to get you to pay for every day things you need to have during the course of your employment is a company that should be walked away from. Company headed paper, envelopes etc should all be supplied and paid for by the company. –  Jun 12 '20 at 00:29
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    Good on you for being skeptical, when using the internet it is important to think before acting, especially when paying anything of value or providing personal details.

    Just a tip: If someone asks for lots of personal info (name address phone etc,) don’t provide that, unless you are 110% sure it is legit, as that is identity theft, and they can do anything in your name eg. open a bank account and get into debt, commit degital crimes etc.

     – B-K Jun 12 '20 at 04:58
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    If you needed one more person to tell you it's a scam, here I am. It's a scam, it has scam all over it. You never have to pay to work. That's not how employment works. You're supposed to get money for work. This kind of scam is a basic Advance Fee Scam. Here's an wikipedia article that explains it – Andrei Jun 12 '20 at 08:53
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    You didn't send them the bitcoin or any money right? as a good rule of thumb, if you need to pay something to get hired it's probably not a good idea. – encryptoferia Jun 12 '20 at 09:03
  • Run, don't walk. – copper.hat Jun 13 '20 at 14:26
  • Is it possible to check what other transactions do they have on their account (where you were going to buy stuff) – Askar Kalykov Jun 14 '20 at 09:32

2 Answers2

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This is scam. Companies do not offer jobs without qualifications. Plus asking you to pay by bitcoin is scam and can't be traced. Even bank transactions are difficult to recover.

Don't transfer anything bitcoin or bank transactions or western union. Stop all communications before you give more information.

Dheer
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    I JUST FOUND A SCAM POST THE SAME AS MINE AND IT IS INDEED A SCAM – clefnote Jun 11 '20 at 14:33
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    I am crying and so disgusted by that person right now. He takes advantage of other people's problem and used it for his gain. I am so angry I want him to go to jail – clefnote Jun 11 '20 at 14:34
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    Bitcoin is easy to trace; the ledger containing all transactions is public. A bitcoin transaction is impossible to reverse which is the bigger issue in scams like this. – Doryx Jun 11 '20 at 21:56
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    @Doryx the transactions are open. But the individuals are unknown untraceable. – Dheer Jun 12 '20 at 00:18
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    Tracing bitcoin to a random address, which cannot be linked to any entity by design, is completely pointless. – obscurans Jun 12 '20 at 00:19
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    @Doryx So they easily recovered all the money that was stolen from Mt Gox, right? Since it's so easy to trace? – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jun 12 '20 at 01:08
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    I hate to say it, but everything about this screamed scam and should have been patently obvious. Unfortunately we don't always think clearly when we are in desperate situations. I hate that they prey on people in these situations, but it sounds like at least you learned a valuable lesson, whatever consolation that might be. – JohnFx Jun 12 '20 at 03:26
  • @Dheer the Bitcoin can be traced and it is within the ability of three-letter agencies to figure out the recipients using metadata as Bitcoin is only pseudonymous (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.07501.pdf). Even from a trivial perspective, the BTC is useless in a wallet and if the scammer would like to capitalize on their misdeeds, they will need to cash out. If the scam is large enough, major exchanges will flag the address making it hard to cash out, reducing its value. – Taku Jun 12 '20 at 04:08
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    @JohnFx : for anyone saying "it should have been obvious", I would recommend checking out this: https://xkcd.com/1053/ :) – vsz Jun 12 '20 at 04:52
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    @TaumataAkuhata : and would a three-letter agency bother to do all this work to help a victim get back a few hundred or at most a few thousand $ back from scammers who might even be on a different continent in a country they might not even have an extradition treaty at all (so they can't do it legally even if they had the resources to spare)? – vsz Jun 12 '20 at 04:53
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    @Taumata The fact that scams/ransomware with bitcoin happen all the time and that nobody ever recovers any money and the people doing the scams seem to have no problems converting the bitcoin indirectly to cash (buying stolen credit cards and other things) somewhat invalidates your whole theory don't you think? Bitcoin are a dream come true for criminals. – Voo Jun 12 '20 at 08:33
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    It's a common scammer tactic to request money up front for "supplies". Perhaps some legitimate and respectable employers do it too, but so far I haven't heard of a single such case – Charon ME Jun 12 '20 at 09:32
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    @TaumataAkuhata In addition to the issues of legal jurisdiction described in the comments above, there are plenty of ways to work around Bitcoin's limitations, most of them easy to implement for your average criminal. VPNs, throwaway devices, Tor, shuffling, exchanging for more anonymous coins (e.g. Monero) etc. etc. The bottom line is that it's only really high value and/or incompetent criminals who get caught by three letter agencies. – JBentley Jun 12 '20 at 10:20
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    @JBentley Do you know of any cases where TLAs actually caught criminals due to their Bitcoin traces and not some more traditional approaches? Would be interesting. – Voo Jun 12 '20 at 10:50
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    @Voo Analysts traced payments from Quadriga to personal accounts of the founder. Of course that's only possible if the criminals aren't smart enough to use a mixer. –  Jun 12 '20 at 13:37
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    @Doryx - There are plenty of services which will, for a small fee, mix your bitcoins with other people's bitcoins, thus making them essentially untraceable. – Valorum Jun 13 '20 at 09:23
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I'm sorry to hear that someone took (or tried to take) advantage of your willingness to trust, but that's how scam artists like this work.

Your post doesn't say exactly WHAT "supplies" you were supposed to buy to do the job, but whatever they were doesn't change the fact this was simply a way to con money out of someone. And unfortunately they are successful with it often enough to make money at it, which is the worst part.

As an employer (and one who has a number of people working for me from home on a contract basis) I would NEVER, EVER ask them to pay money for whatever's required to perform their job duties.

That being said, I do require them to have specific things, such as a telephone, a computer, and so on, but those are not things they buy from me.

Until more conventional methods become mainstream for cryptocurrency transactions so that there can be some kind of "safety net" against fraud to some extent or another (although nothing comes to mind right now and probably never will, as far as I can think of), they will remain the "go-to" method for most scams to utilize. You can track transactions, but you can't know WHO is on the other end, and what would stop them from setting up accounts just long enough to pull off a scam like this for a little while, cashing out, and moving on to start all over again?

Again, I'm very sorry you had to deal with this, especially in light of your desire to work and develop the experience necessary to obtain employment with larger, more established companies. I hope it works out for you!

RiverNet
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