Billing Clerk Job Scam- Common Sense Design Pittsburgh

Beware of an job recruiting scam from someone going by the name Donald Christian or Tamara Harrison claiming to be representing a company called Common Sense Design in Pittsburgh Pa offering a Billing Clerk position. After the job seeker is “hired” they may tell the employee they are now an Assistant Manager.

They are sending recruiting emails using a domain that was just registered on 10/17/16 for one year only: csd-north.com. The website is currently showing as under construction, however it is not uncommon for scammers to register a domain name to use it just for email purposes only and register another similar domain to put up a website to use as their employees “web panel” to receive the “tasks” of the so-called job. Below is a screen shot of CSD Norths’ web panel which is the same website used in many of their previous scams:

Stolen Company Identity

The scammers are telling potential employees that they have a company in UK and they are opening a branch in Pennsylvania, US. The address and phone number they are using in their web panels back office is: 5877 Commerce St, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 Phone (412) 540-5909 or 412-506-3909. That  business address is actually a building owned by the Cube Creative Space who leases mailing addresses and space to clients such as Daring Room Escapes and others. The list of The Cubes tenants can be found at http://www.cube-pgh.com/our-community/.

A potential victim of this scam sent an email to Alex Lee who is the owner of the legitimate Common Sense Design in the UK who verified this job offer is indeed a scam and is in no way associated with his company in the UK.

Therefore scammers has stolen the identity of Mr Lee’s company in order to make job seekers believe their job offer was legitimate.

The Recruiting Email

Below is a copy of the recruiting email they are sending to their potential employees:

Good morning,

Thank you for your interest in the Billing Clerk vacancy with Common Sense Design! Common Sense Design is US branch of a UK graphic design brand that has just settled in Pittsburgh, PA. Due to the current increase in the number of customers, we are looking for people to join our team working from home. Being a CSD employee means making a career in a fact-paced business with a growing client base, proven methods and a strong market demand!

Your responsibilities as a Billing Clerk will be the following:

– Dealing with 3rd party orders and bills,
– Entering order information into the system,
– Managing account and client records,
– Helping clients with billing procedures.

Billing Clerks are NOT responsible for:

– Searching for new clients: this is a task for our sales executives, you will be working with our existing customers only.
– Performing any design activities: this is a task for our technical staff, your role is client support and billing only.

You can work from home anywhere in the USA as long as you have the access to the Internet; you would also need a laptop/tablet/PC with a web browser and basic Office programs installed. No need to purchase any special programs or equipment: your progress will be monitored at the corporate web server which you will be logging in Monday to Friday. A typical day will begin with clocking into the corporate website, checking for messages and tasks from your supervisor and working on them. Typical assignments can include going through a pile of invoices and sorting them out, editing customer information in the database, confirming and processing a payment from a customer, etc. At the end of the shift each Billing Clerk sends a daily report to the supervisor and logs off.

We offer permanent employment with W2 job contracts. There are full-time and part-time options for your choosing, which will require 20 or 40 hours of your time weekly, Monday to Friday. The first 3 weeks will be considered a training/trial period, which is covered separately. The initial monthly salary after the trial period will be $4500 for full-time and $2500 for part-time; plus all Billing Clerks are eligible for accumulative bonuses based on individual performance and customers feedback. After the first 3 weeks of work, you will be eligible for a paid vacation of 21 days, 401k and a corporate medical insurance program.

To apply for the Billing Clerk position, please respond to this email, and we will send you our employment paperwork for review with additional information on your salary, schedule and other posotion related details. Please note that our company never asks for any payments from candidates to secure the positions!

—
Best regards,
Donald A. Christian, PM
Common Sense Design USA
Call us: (412) 540-5909

I have highlighted in red all the usual telltale red flags that are common with practically all of the job scams we have reported previously which are: Processing payments, and too good to be true salaries with full benefits! This is clearly another money mule job scam in which they will expect the employee to process a customer payment in the form of either a direct deposit in the employees bank account (which will get reversed) or a fake paper check in which the employee will cash and either wire the cash to the “supplier” or they will expect the employee to purchase  pre-paid gift or Visa cards and provide their “supervisor” (who is the scammer) with the card numbers.

This “task” will be completed and the cash will already be in the scammers hands by the time the check is returned to the bank for insufficient funds and therefore the employee will be left holding the bag having to pay the bank back for the bad check while the scammers are long gone along with the employees money never to be heard from by the employee again until possibly months or years later they find their identity has been stolen since the employee also provided the scammers with their personal details!

What To Do If You Are A Victim

If you have fell victim to an employment scam like this, you need to contact your bank immediately and close your account IF you have provided your account information to the scammers. Next file a police report with your local authorities and then file a complaint with the FBI’s internet crime center at http://www.ic3.gov/

If you provided your personal information like ss # birthdate etc , you need to contact the 3 credit bureaus- TransUnion, Equifax and Experian,  and place a fraud alert on your report. These criminals can steal your identity and may try and obtain credit in your name. Doing this will alert you for at least 90 days about any suspicious activity.

In the hands of a thief, just your name, address, Social Security number or date of birth, can be used over and over months- even years down the road to:

Open new lines of credit
Seek medical attention
Drain savings and retirement accounts
Provide an alias when arrested
Get a job or file false tax returns
Get Payday Loans in your name
Obtain service agreements for cellular service or utilities
Obtain Government Documents such as a drivers license or passport
And MORE!

That’s why I highly recommend you get some sort of ongoing identity theft protection such as the services offered through companies like LifeLock-Visit Their Website Here or Identity Force-visit their website here! LifeLock and Identity Force are both reputable companies that monitors your accounts and alerts and protects you from identity theft.

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Have you received a suspicious email offering you a “job” with Common Sense Design In Pittsburg Pa or other work at home “Billing Clerk, Assistant or Account Manager” job that you never applied for? Feel free to copy and paste the email in the comments so we can help alert and prevent others from becoming victims.

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