What to do when you’re being scammed

Let me start by saying, Micaura Consulting is not hiring. I should know, it’s the company I built from the ground beginning in 2007, and left behind 11 years later to change our lives, become parents and move to Vancouver Island.

Our teams finished up our contracts and one by one informed clients. The economy was slowing, and our consultants dropped away one at a time. I was sad to walk away, but I also knew it was time. I left the website to expire. I left the Facebook page to languish. I didn’t think anyone would think twice or miss us at all. Life would move on. But I forgot, nature doesn’t like a vacuum, and when something dies, it’s not long before the maggots come to feed. Now, Micaura Consulting is being used as a scam by unscrupulous people looking to make a quick, dishonest buck.

This was not the article I had planned for this week.

It’s an ugly topic, but, I refuse to avoid it. Not when innocent people are suffering.

If you’re a human with an email address, you’ve been exposed to people trying to unfairly take your money. If you’re a job hunter trying to find part-time, online, or remote work; you’re in a really tough position. How do you ensure that you’re not being scammed? Anyone can set up a simple, professional looking website. They can give you a phone number and offer to pay you money in return you do something for them. How do you know who’s conducting actual business and who’s just trying to take money from you?

The scam that’s being inflicted on the business I still own, but no longer operate, is quite ingenius.

They advertise on job hunting websites for a role called “Assessment Officer”, effectively a secret shopper. Unsuspecting job seekers provide them information and instructions as you would expect from a legitimate employer. The fraudsters have asked victims to jump through hoops like getting police checks and doing phone interviews. There were forms to fill out for the reviews to be done at various stores, and they even budgeted money in the “payment” for up to $100 of purchases at the store they were to assess.

They sent checks to their newly hired officers, for $3800 from one account, either a fake one or an empty account, with instructions to cash out $3400 of it and send it to another account of theirs. The remaining $400 was to be kept by the consultant as fees paid for services. They asked for receipts and everything.

I found out about this scam, when a Google review called my now dormant business a scam, and to which I quickly replied. Then, another person contacted me through our company Facebook page. After I posted a note to email me if you’ve been offered a job, the messages began pouring in.

What an awful cocktail of terrible feelings that comes from an experience like this. When I set out to be a business owner and running my own consultancy, never, did I think this would be a problem I would face. I wanted to help people find freedom through consulting and freelancing, learning new skills as a group, not to have an unscrupulous, sad excuse for a human being lie to people and take their hard earned money, posing as me.

I’ve now been in contact with the Canadian Fraud Centre, the Calgary police and CIBC Fraud Management Centre, trying to stop this from affecting anyone else. I posted on my social media and am answering every email personally, so far I've successfully intervened and stopped a dozen would be victims from cashing bad checks and taking money out of their accounts.

I learned a lot about fraud in this last very inconvenient, heartbreaking week. So to do my part, I’ll make this article about shining a light on this dirty business, and share what I learned.

First, I want you to know a few things to look out for and then what to do about it.

1.     Red Flags

In this story there were a number of red-flags that a few people missed. Most people caught on when they saw one thing off, but all these frauds need are a few people to over look the things that are slightly off, and take a leap of faith, to make their money and run.

The website URL and domains

Look for inconsistencies. If they’re emailing from one website, but all the information uses another, that's a red flag. If they're operating as one company but sending checks as another, that's a red flag. All of my original Micaura information used micaura.com, they used micauraconsulting.com but sent checks from RioCan. The logos didn’t match, and the links in their email signatures pointed to yet another fake looking site containing no real information. When you’re looking into joining a new company that you’ve never heard of before, follow all the links, follow their social media. Make sure its active. Make sure all the dots connect. Contact them from multiple angles. When potential consultants reached out through social media, they found me and together, the scam became obvious.

Prepayment or cash transfers.

Employers aren’t in the habit of sending new workers checks before any work is done. They don’t ask for employees to cash money and send it back to them in a different account. That alone, can’t be legal.

Graphics.

Logos these days are generally vector files. If you see fuzzy copies, or very different logos and branding between a social media account and its website, or the information they attach to their emails, let that be a heads up if you’re the visual type. Logos aren’t easy to copy in their full quality, and generally people who are too lazy to make money legitimately, they’re too lazy to make perfect copies. Look for sloppy graphics coming from a company that has professionally created branding and you’ll know there’s something going on.

2.      Report it.

The Canadian Centre for Fraud is at 1888 495 8501.

The people I’ve talked to here are kind, and very to the point. This step is to either create a record or access information about frauds across Canada. They tell you how to help them, while letting you know that you’re not alone if you’ve been scammed, or, if you’re unsure about something and want to do some research, call them anyway and see if this is a known scam. They don’t just chase down new cases, they help prevent fraud too but arming you with knowledge. They will give you a unique case number that you keep only to yourself. If you have been scammed, don’t just let it go. Report it.

Call the police.

The non-emergency line in the city the business is operating is a good first step. They will be very happy to take your call and open a report. If you’re in a position to sue or are trying to retrieve money lost, this is a critical step.

Call the bank.

If you’ve lost money, or if they’ve given you banking information to follow you’ll know where they have an account. This is an account that likely contains stolen money. The bank needs to be notified.

The lesson I’ve learned in all this, is that we’re all vulnerable in some way. From the largest corporations to the smallest of family businesses, someone can decide to steal your identity. If the CRA can’t get the spam calls to stop, then what chance do we have? I’m doing the only thing I can do, letting everyone know what I know.

I’m also planning to fully shut down the social media accounts after this is all over, but first I’m posting this article on each of them. There’s a lot of my life and professional life connected to Micaura, and I’m sad to see it go, but this feels like a sign that it’s time to completely move on to the next phase of my life.

Please share this article and help me get the word out, I don’t want these creeps to take anymore money from people who just want to believe they’ve caught a break. And after this endeavor is complete, I'll be saying a final goodbye to Micaura. It was a big part of my life, and I'm sad to see it go, but it's time, and I've begun something new.

#closingtime #business #endofanera