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This one comes via a slightly unusual route, since I actually applied for the thing directly! Here's the basics: the scammer behind this particular mess decided to take out a total of six ads on the Australian Job Search site (jobsearch.gov.au) - six identical ads, each with the following text:
That was the entire ad. They were "offering" a total of24 21 positions as "Accounts Assistant" - 3 each in Helena Valley, East Perth, Rockingham, Bedfordale, Cottesloe, Madora Bay and Mosman Park (an unusual spread of suburbs - see the digression below). Now, the combination of six identical ads each offering three positions with a completely vague description of what the position entailed, and absolutely no description of what skills you'd actually need to be doing the job triggered my "scam" flags even then, but hey, I had to apply for two jobs that day due to government requirements (it was the week between Christmas and New Year - as you might imagine, the job ads were a little thin on the ground) so I decided to send my resume in.
(Digression: The scattering of suburbs for the jobs being "offered" struck me as being weird. Most of the suburbs listed are on the edges of Perth, and in either low-income areas, or areas with a lot of public housing tenancies (or to be more accurate, both). Helena Valley is up near Midland, on the eastern fringe of the city. Rockingham is about half an hour's drive south of the city centre, with Madora Bay (in the Mandurah region) being another half hour further south again. Bedfordale is part of the city of Armadale, to the south-east - and more specifically, Bedfordale is the hilly area along the early stretches of the Albany Highway as you're heading out of Armadale. East Perth is in the city, but it's also an area with a lot of public housing tenancies as well. Mosman Park is on the thin coastal strip just north of Fremantle, and again, it's an area with a large amount of public housing tenancies. The really odd one in this bunch is Cottesloe, which is a rather up-market suburb where you could imagine a business consultancy settling in. But Cottesloe is just to the north of Mosman Park - about five minutes away at most. So why two offices so close together? Also, conspicuous by their absence were the northern suburbs of Perth - the furthest north you get is Helena Valley. Altogether, a strange spread of locations, and enough in and of itself to make me suspicious.)
Yesterday, an email arrived at my job search address, with the following text:
Now, the thing which stuck out for me about all of this is that so far, nowhere along the way have they actually mentioned anything about what the job would entail, or what kind of skills you'd require in order to be able to perform it - this is a regular trait of job scams. I decided to do two things - the first was actually look up Moton Group on google, and the second was to look at their job description.
The google search started the scam radar pinging good and hard, because all the listings for Moton Group are in the USA (Colorado and New Jersey being the two locations which showed up on the first page of results), with nothing showing up in Australia. So I took a look at the job description. And immediately started singing "scam, scam, scammity, scam", because here it is in all its glory:
So, we have all the classic scam flags flying in this "job description":
1) They're paying too much for what they're asking for. $40 per hour is very good money. It's very good money for a fully-fledged accountant or business professional. For someone who's supposed to be an Accounts Assistant, dealing with the bookkeeping paperwork (as per the original job ad)? It's almost double the accepted hourly rate for an experienced, qualified bookkeeper - which, you'll note, they're not asking for. For someone whose only qualification for the job is completing high school? It's about double the maximum hourly rate you'd expect.
2) Gratuitous errors in grammar and sentence construction. The job description reads as though it were written by someone who has English as about their third language, and neither of the other two were from the same families. It's sloppy and poorly done - and to a large degree this is deliberate. It's intended to make the reader feel they're pulling one over the scammer, make them feel superior, and make them lower their guard.
3) It doesn't describe the duties or the job skills required. If you've read a job ad recently (and I've read a lot of them) you'll find most of them list fairly specific duties (preparing BAS, drawing up invoices and receipts, reception duties, operating switchboard, etc) and they will almost certainly be asking for specific abilities, qualities, skills and qualifications. By contrast, the job details in this "job description" are vaguer than a lot of political promises.
There's also the "Why do we need Accounts Assistants" and "Why do we not us[sic] a direct account?" sections, which are pretty much direct quotes of other versions of this particular scam I've seen elsewhere. If nothing else, those sections of the job description would have set my scam alarms blasting. If an employer is offering a genuine job, they won't feel the need to justify it, or explain why they're doing things in a particular way. I suspect if I decided to chase up on this job further, I'd find myself being asked to "process" payments via my bank account. Or in other words "open your wallet and repeat after me: 'help yourself'", in a less straightforward format. I think not.
One final thing worth noting: The "job description" and "application form" both come with a fairly prominent, and official-looking version of the Australian coat of arms, over the words "Government of Australia National Employment Standards (NSE)". A quick google on the words "national employment standards australia" reveals the correct acronym to be (as expected) "NES". So I suspect this scammer is attempting to make themselves look "official" by use of the coat of arms - which may well be breaking the law:
(from: https://www.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/Commonwealth_Coat_of_Arms_Information_and_Guidelines.pdf)
My partner, who heard me laughing my head off at this particular scam, did a bit of checking of his own. He reports the Moton Group website is very generic, buzzword-heavy template text for company websites; the site is also hosted by a provider in the Netherlands, which is a bit unusual for a company based in the USA (and apparently "hiring" in Australia). The contact names for the website are generic throw-away email addresses. The website is about five months old at most, and the website gives the main address for the company as being in Georgia, USA. Apparently the Colorado listings are for the previous owners of the name "Moton Group", who were involved in motor sports, and whose business went bust about a year ago. They didn't use the domain name "motongroup.com", either, by the way.
One of the things which really ticked the "scam" box for my partner was the fact that apart from the singular website and the mentions of the previous owners of the name, there's no other mentions of Moton Group anywhere. Nothing on the web, nothing on social media, and most damningly (for a group which is portraying themselves as management consultants) nothing whatsoever on LinkedIn. Given management consultants are in the top ten networking professions around (beaten out only by politicians, journalists and recruiters) this is profoundly unusual to say the very least.
On top of this, the address given for our "Senior Manager", Kevin K Elmore, when googled, brings up the Optus Business Development Centre. No, this isn't the name of the office complex Moton Group has an office in. It's the name of the tenant of the office at 8B/69 Sir Donald Bradman Drive, Hilton, South Australia, 5033.
The US telephone number given on the Moton Group's website turns out to be a private phone, according to a reverse look-up in a US service. Doing a reverse lookup on the Australian phone number gives you a number which might be in Alice Springs or Darwin, in the Northern Territory, which seems a bit of a commute to a suburb of Adelaide. (For my US readers, this is akin to someone living on the Canadian border or in the middle of the USA commuting to New Orleans in terms of distance travelled).
Oh, and it goes without saying that Kevin K Elmore doesn't exist on LinkedIn, either.
All in all, if you're looking at an "offer" of a "job" from Moton Group, I'd decline. The only job they're offering in all seriousness is "sucker". (It goes without saying that I'm not going to be filling in their application form myself).
EDITED 10 JAN - Correcting the number of positions offered. Seven times three is 21.
"Company: This successful property multinational has a global presence and has been growing consistently. They have an excellent working culture with a very low attrition rate. The culture is high performing, collaborative and very friendly. They have great mentors in the business and a very supportive culture.
Position: The role we are recruiting for will be for someone to come in for 2 - 4 days per week (Days are flexible except at month end). You will be responsible for managing the Accounts Payable, Receivables and Bank Reconciliation processes. You will be heavily relied upon to ensure all reporting is done for the month end close.
Profile: To be considered for this role you must be excellent with systems and be a confident communicator. You will be flexible on your working times around month end but would have a degree of flexibility the rest of the time."
That was the entire ad. They were "offering" a total of
(Digression: The scattering of suburbs for the jobs being "offered" struck me as being weird. Most of the suburbs listed are on the edges of Perth, and in either low-income areas, or areas with a lot of public housing tenancies (or to be more accurate, both). Helena Valley is up near Midland, on the eastern fringe of the city. Rockingham is about half an hour's drive south of the city centre, with Madora Bay (in the Mandurah region) being another half hour further south again. Bedfordale is part of the city of Armadale, to the south-east - and more specifically, Bedfordale is the hilly area along the early stretches of the Albany Highway as you're heading out of Armadale. East Perth is in the city, but it's also an area with a lot of public housing tenancies as well. Mosman Park is on the thin coastal strip just north of Fremantle, and again, it's an area with a large amount of public housing tenancies. The really odd one in this bunch is Cottesloe, which is a rather up-market suburb where you could imagine a business consultancy settling in. But Cottesloe is just to the north of Mosman Park - about five minutes away at most. So why two offices so close together? Also, conspicuous by their absence were the northern suburbs of Perth - the furthest north you get is Helena Valley. Altogether, a strange spread of locations, and enough in and of itself to make me suspicious.)
Yesterday, an email arrived at my job search address, with the following text:
Welcome [MyLegalName]
Thank you for your interest in the vacancy that we have in Moton Group!
So that we can get to know your skills and professionalism, please fill in the attached form to the letter.
A job description is also available with detailed information about the offer.
How does the selection process go?
We make a selection of employees based on the data that you send us in the questionnaires.
In the selection process, we will give preference to those candidates whose qualifications and level of knowledge will best meet our requirements.
The terms of consideration
Your application will soon be reviewed for the first qualifying round. If you successfully pass it then we will contact you immediately.
We wish you success and inspiration!
With kind regards,
Moton Group
Kevin K. Elmore
8B/69 Sir Donald
Bradman Drive,
Hilton, SA 5033
www.motongroup.com
Now, the thing which stuck out for me about all of this is that so far, nowhere along the way have they actually mentioned anything about what the job would entail, or what kind of skills you'd require in order to be able to perform it - this is a regular trait of job scams. I decided to do two things - the first was actually look up Moton Group on google, and the second was to look at their job description.
The google search started the scam radar pinging good and hard, because all the listings for Moton Group are in the USA (Colorado and New Jersey being the two locations which showed up on the first page of results), with nothing showing up in Australia. So I took a look at the job description. And immediately started singing "scam, scam, scammity, scam", because here it is in all its glory:
JOB DESCRIPTION
Position: Accounts Assistant
Employment: part/full time
Type of employment: distant work / office
DOT code: 1015443554
Salary: 40 $/hour (680 $/week)
Working hours: 17 hours/week
Bonuses: 5% from each order
Probation period: 14 days
Do you have good organizational skills?
Are you active, punctual, sociable?
Manager assumes these qualities for making successful business. Are you full of enthusiasm? Then you are the right person for us!
Are you afraid because you do not have special knowledge and skills?
Do not worry about it. One of our most experienced workers will guide you during the probation period. He will be able to answer any questions that you have and will help you in all your beginnings.
What does our company do?
Moton Group is one of the leaders in the field of consulting. We do business in a big amount of countries around the world. We own our success to our team's cohesion and focus on the overall result of each. We know the approach to each client, so Moton Group is thriving and expanding rapidly.
What does a Accounts Assistant have to do?
He has to do planning
Coordinate and work with clients.
Production, processing and shipping charges.
Maintain statistics and accounting operations.
Work with incoming and outgoing correspondence.
Why do we need Accounts Assistant?
Moton Group works almost all over the world. Accounts Assistant of our company accept customer payments in a particular region make reports and send money to the main office. Thus, the manager acts as a link between the client and the main office of the company.
Why do we not us a direct account?
We do not need to pay additional taxes
Reduces the cost of renting working spaces.
There is a growing number of customers because not everybody uses international transfers.
Reduces the waiting time of payment. A Accounts Assistant can immediately send the money to our branch, while the international transfer can wait for more than 5 days. This allows you to reduce the time that you spend on one customer.
The quality of reporting. Each Accounts Assistant is attached to a particular region and personally leads his statements.
Qualifications
1. Full secondary education.
2. Communication skills, ability to work in a team.
3. Stress resistance, ability to find easy solutions to difficult problems.
4. Organizational skills that will help successfully plan the day.
5. Knowledge of the PC and basic knowledge at using Microsoft Office.
If you believe in yourself and your abilities, aim for financial stability and think that you can work with us, please fill out the attached form.
Our HR Department specialists will review your information and write you if you are the exact person for us!
So, we have all the classic scam flags flying in this "job description":
1) They're paying too much for what they're asking for. $40 per hour is very good money. It's very good money for a fully-fledged accountant or business professional. For someone who's supposed to be an Accounts Assistant, dealing with the bookkeeping paperwork (as per the original job ad)? It's almost double the accepted hourly rate for an experienced, qualified bookkeeper - which, you'll note, they're not asking for. For someone whose only qualification for the job is completing high school? It's about double the maximum hourly rate you'd expect.
2) Gratuitous errors in grammar and sentence construction. The job description reads as though it were written by someone who has English as about their third language, and neither of the other two were from the same families. It's sloppy and poorly done - and to a large degree this is deliberate. It's intended to make the reader feel they're pulling one over the scammer, make them feel superior, and make them lower their guard.
3) It doesn't describe the duties or the job skills required. If you've read a job ad recently (and I've read a lot of them) you'll find most of them list fairly specific duties (preparing BAS, drawing up invoices and receipts, reception duties, operating switchboard, etc) and they will almost certainly be asking for specific abilities, qualities, skills and qualifications. By contrast, the job details in this "job description" are vaguer than a lot of political promises.
There's also the "Why do we need Accounts Assistants" and "Why do we not us[sic] a direct account?" sections, which are pretty much direct quotes of other versions of this particular scam I've seen elsewhere. If nothing else, those sections of the job description would have set my scam alarms blasting. If an employer is offering a genuine job, they won't feel the need to justify it, or explain why they're doing things in a particular way. I suspect if I decided to chase up on this job further, I'd find myself being asked to "process" payments via my bank account. Or in other words "open your wallet and repeat after me: 'help yourself'", in a less straightforward format. I think not.
One final thing worth noting: The "job description" and "application form" both come with a fairly prominent, and official-looking version of the Australian coat of arms, over the words "Government of Australia National Employment Standards (NSE)". A quick google on the words "national employment standards australia" reveals the correct acronym to be (as expected) "NES". So I suspect this scammer is attempting to make themselves look "official" by use of the coat of arms - which may well be breaking the law:
"Use of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms without permission may breach the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, the Trade Marks Act 1995 or the Criminal Code Act 1995"
(from: https://www.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/Commonwealth_Coat_of_Arms_Information_and_Guidelines.pdf)
My partner, who heard me laughing my head off at this particular scam, did a bit of checking of his own. He reports the Moton Group website is very generic, buzzword-heavy template text for company websites; the site is also hosted by a provider in the Netherlands, which is a bit unusual for a company based in the USA (and apparently "hiring" in Australia). The contact names for the website are generic throw-away email addresses. The website is about five months old at most, and the website gives the main address for the company as being in Georgia, USA. Apparently the Colorado listings are for the previous owners of the name "Moton Group", who were involved in motor sports, and whose business went bust about a year ago. They didn't use the domain name "motongroup.com", either, by the way.
One of the things which really ticked the "scam" box for my partner was the fact that apart from the singular website and the mentions of the previous owners of the name, there's no other mentions of Moton Group anywhere. Nothing on the web, nothing on social media, and most damningly (for a group which is portraying themselves as management consultants) nothing whatsoever on LinkedIn. Given management consultants are in the top ten networking professions around (beaten out only by politicians, journalists and recruiters) this is profoundly unusual to say the very least.
On top of this, the address given for our "Senior Manager", Kevin K Elmore, when googled, brings up the Optus Business Development Centre. No, this isn't the name of the office complex Moton Group has an office in. It's the name of the tenant of the office at 8B/69 Sir Donald Bradman Drive, Hilton, South Australia, 5033.
The US telephone number given on the Moton Group's website turns out to be a private phone, according to a reverse look-up in a US service. Doing a reverse lookup on the Australian phone number gives you a number which might be in Alice Springs or Darwin, in the Northern Territory, which seems a bit of a commute to a suburb of Adelaide. (For my US readers, this is akin to someone living on the Canadian border or in the middle of the USA commuting to New Orleans in terms of distance travelled).
Oh, and it goes without saying that Kevin K Elmore doesn't exist on LinkedIn, either.
All in all, if you're looking at an "offer" of a "job" from Moton Group, I'd decline. The only job they're offering in all seriousness is "sucker". (It goes without saying that I'm not going to be filling in their application form myself).
EDITED 10 JAN - Correcting the number of positions offered. Seven times three is 21.
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The site they did the original ads on, jobsearch.gov.au, despite being provided by the Department of Employment here in Australia, is probably the worst jobs board I've seen anywhere - most of the content is screen-scraped from other databases, and as far as I can tell, none of it is checked for accuracy (or even whether they've dropped it into the right category in the database). In my last trawl through there (the day this bloke was advertising) they purported to list 28 positions available for part-time administrative workers in Perth, Western Australia. Now, 21 of those 28 were this particular scam; of the others (all screen-scraped from CareerOne.com.au), one had expired long since, another three weren't in the same state (one of them was in Newcastle NSW, the other two were in England - and they'd already closed for applicants), and a fifth didn't really look as though it had existed in the first place (and certainly didn't now).
Unfortunately for me, the Australian government does tend to try to push the use of jobsearch.gov.au on the unemployed via the various employment service providers.
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Moton Group scam
Big time scam!