National Traffic Consultants, Inc.

This company offers logistics and freight forwarding services. The company has advised the BBB that a fraudulent entity called National Trust Consultants has hacked into their financial information and used their identity for fraudulent purposes. Reportedly, the fraudulent entity has sent checks written for large amounts of money to selected individuals offering the check as payment for a survey job. The recipient is instructed to deposit the check, keep a substantial amount as their earnings, and wire the remainder back to the company. This is a check scam, commonly referred to as a Money Mule Scam. If you have received a similar solicitation or employment offer, we urge extreme caution.

Fraudulent perpetrators contact prospective victims with "job vacancy" ads via spam emails, letters, newspaper job ads, Internet chat rooms or job search web sites. Jobs are usually advertised as a "financial manager, US representative", "shipping manager", "financial manager" or "sales manager". They offer you the chance to earn some easy money for a few hours work each week, usually just requiring that you have access to the Internet, and suggest that no special knowledge is required. They then convince the victim to come and work for their fake "company". Some fraudsters even ask mules to sign official-looking contracts of employment. Once recruited, money mules will receive funds into their accounts. These funds will have been stolen by the fraudulent company from another account that has been compromised. Mules are then asked to take these funds out of their account and to forward them overseas (minus a commission payment) typically using a wire transfer service. Acting as a mule is an illegal activity. When caught, money mules often have their bank accounts suspended, containing *all* of their money.

Although the prospect of making some easy money may appear attractive, any "commission" payments will be recovered as they are the proceeds of fraud and you may become embroiled in a police investigation. Remember that you will be the easiest part of the chain to track down and supplying any information to the perpetrators may also put you at risk from identity fraud. If you see an opportunity to make some easy money and the offer seems too good to be true, then it probably is! Remember that even if you have nothing to do with the actual extraction of funds from another person's account, by allowing your account to be used to receive and transfer such funds, you will be acting illegally.

Be cautious about any unsolicited offers or opportunities offering you the chance to make some easy money. Be especially wary of offers from people or companies overseas as is harder for you to find out if they really are who they say they are. Take steps to verify any company which makes you a job offer and check their contact details (address, phone number, email address and web site) are correct and whether they are registered in the U S. Never give your bank details to anyone unless you know and trust them.