A recruiter sent me a job description of a accounts receivable representative for North America for a large Chinese

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How were you interviewed for this position?  How are you supposed to process payments?  That is, are you to deposit them in your own account?  Open up an account under the name of their company with you as the sole signatory?    Are they sending you any money to pay for office supplies?   Do you have a website for this company?

How are you to process the payments?  Do you have a website for this company that you can give me?  How was the interview conducted?

Not that there aren't legitmate payment processing jobs, but many payment processing jobs you get approached for online are really money laundering scams that can get you into a great deal of legal trouble and get you blacklisted with your bank as well.

An unsolicited message from LinkedIn is highly suspicious.   LinkedIn doesn't vouch for the legitimacy of their members or their profiles.

What was the email address you sent the email to?

I think it probably is too.  Here's how the scam goes.  See if any of it sounds familiar:

You get an offer of employment as some kind of an account manager, typically from some foreign company that usually claims to be just opening up a branch in your area. It's a work-at-home position. The salary is very high for the kind of work you are doing, and there's no real interview to speak of. You get the job easily on the strength of your resumé. In fact, sometimes you're just offered the job via email without you even having applied or gotten interviewed at all.

There are two variations. In one, you're told that this job is to make purchases and you will be given credit card numbers to make them with. Then when the packages come to you, you'll repack them and ship them elsewhere.

In the second version, you're told you'll be processing payments which you will put in your bank account or in an account you will open in the business's name. Then you may be told that you can keep a percentage as your commission but you must wire the bulk of the money back to your employers. The checks will bounce and you'll be liable to your bank for the overdraft. If you fail to repay your bank, they will have you prosecuted for bank fraud.

With either job you may be told that you'll be given a check to buy office supplies. You'll be asked to deposit that check and then use a different means of payment to pay the company vendor for the supplies. That check will bounce and you'll have lost a few thousand dollars. If that results in an overdraft you'll owe the money to your bank.

Scammers can use the names of real companies when they do this.  But even if the company is real, it just doesn't make sense that a Chinese pharmaceutical company would need Americans in the US to process payments for them.   And if you've held jobs before in your life, you know how real businesses screen applicants.  You got this job much too easily.  Don't  you think that if you were really processing payments for a living that the company wouldn't want a full background check before trusting you with their funds?

Something isn't sitting right with this.  Trust your instincts.   If you give me the name and the email address or website for the company, I can dig deeper, but right now this looks like the generic scam to me.

Do you need me to clarify anything or to give you more information?

I thought it sounded like the account manager scam too.   You don't need to contact them again.  You don't really have a job and don't need to formally withdraw from the position.   Just block them and if you wish, report them to the FBI online at www.IC3.gov and to the Federal Trade Commission at www.FTC.gov.

You're very welcome

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