Emacity Ventures, LLC-Personalassistantsolutons.com Scam Alert
Personalassistantsolutons.com was just registered 10/12/2015 for one year by someone claiming to be Douglas Szymanski using the organization name: Personal Assistant Solutions LLC, 112 Quivas Court SW, Atlanta Ga. The site is hosted in Germany.
The website shows the name Emacity Ventures LLC in the copyright information at the bottom of the page as well as the name of the company. In September another website, Personalassistingsolutions.com was registered under the Emacity Ventures LLC name using the real EV owners name, Erin Doffney and address 113 Quivas Ct SW, Atlanta Ga, which since has been reported as fraud and taken offline but apparently now has been replaced by the current site Personalassistantsolutons.com. Below is a screenshot of this website :
Emacity Ventures LLC/EV Office Solutions is a legitimate company and their legitimate website is located at www.virtualbusinessofficesolutions.com. They have posted this alert below on their website as well as the BBB website:
As of 10/5/15 EV Office Solutions and Emacity Ventures, LLC have been made aware of Scamming and Phishing. Be aware that Erika Szymanski and her cronies are not and never have been affiliated with this company, and are using information erroneously. EV Office Solutions nor Emacity Ventures, LLC have not placed any ads or contacted applicants for employment opportunities. Please make sure you are looking at the domain name (www.name.com) very carefully. The documents they are sending are fraudulent! I’ve researched their domain information and they are located in Germany. They also seem to be getting your information from Career Builder. Contact them as well. Thank you and stay safe! Erin D.
It looks like Erika Szymanski was sending out the recruiting emails and now has since brought in a crony named Douglas Szymanski to try and avoid suspicion?..hmm!
Virtual Assistant Jobs?
On the surface, Personalassistantsolutons.com appears to advertise to individuals and businesses who need help with various tasks and provides personal/virtual assistants to perform those tasks for them for a fee. They charge hourly “rates” based on the “employers” needs…or so that’s what they try to make it appear to be!
But Beware! This is just another clever disguise for a “money mule” scam to target job seekers via email into becoming a “virtual or personal assistant” to perform these so-called tasks for their fake “clients”, which involves accepting and cashing fake checks or bank deposits and wiring money overseas.
Once the check has been cashed or the money withdrawn from the bank and is wired to the fake “client” the bank then discovers the funds were either stolen or the check was fake and you the victim will be held responsible to pay the money back while the scammers essentially walk away scot-free with the stolen money YOU wired to them!
Don’t Be A Money Mule!
If you receive or accept ANY work at home job offer that requires you to cash checks and/or use your own bank account to handle “client” accounts, it’s a scam! A legitimate company will NEVER ask an employee to use their personal bank account or cash checks to handle company business!
What To Do If You Are A Victim
If you have fell victim to an employment scam, you need to contact your bank immediately and close your account IF you have provided this 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 Social Security number to them, you need to contact the 3 credit bureaus- TransUnion, Equifax and Experian, and place a fraud alert on your report. They can steal your identity and may try and obtain credit in your name. This will alert you for at least 90 days about any suspicious activity. I highly recommend you get some sort of ongoing identity protection such as the services offered through companies like LifeLock-Visit Their Website Here!
Have you received a job offer email claiming to be from Emacity Ventures or any other suspicious email offering you a “job” 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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Thank you so much for posting the information on this website. Genius!!! I have been speaking to perspective applicants about phony job postings since October 2015. Fortunately, I was able to have the first couple of websites shut down, but as we all have grown to know, if you are not a criminal it’s hard to keep up with one. It’s unfortunate that scammers prey on innocent people looking for legitimate jobs. It seems as though the scammers are getting applicant’s information from Career Builder and the like. Everyone please be aware and do your homework, DO NOT give out your sensitive information. If it sounds too good to be true, then it is. Keep up the good work with postings. Cheers
Thank you for your comment and the words of encouragement.
I received almost the exact same email as above. Here it is:
Hi,
Thank you for your interest in the Personal Assistant position with Virtuoso Assistant LLC! We are a group of certified personal assistants with the head office based in Pittsburgh, PA. Due to the recent increase in the number of clients, we’re looking for new Personal Assistants to join our team working remotely, from their homes.
What Do Personal Assistants Do?
Personal Assistants working online have pretty much the same duties as those assigned to individuals, businesses and especially elderly and disabled persons, who are working offline. We do NOT sell or advertise anything, neither we actually pick up groceries or laundry for our clients and meet them in person. Typical tasks for a Personal Assistant, such as yourself, may include the following:
– Managing email correspondence: sorting, marking and answering messages;
– Booking tickets, scheduling appointments, arranging meetings;
– Performing Internet research on locations, services, products;
– Transcribing voice/video recordings, typing and editing documents;
– Managing clients’ billing and expenses, delivering bills, etc.
Since this is a home-based job, you will need a laptop/tablet with the Internet access, the company doesn’t provide you with one. You don’t have to purchase any special software: a web browser, standard office programs and a free PDF viewer would be enough for most tasks. Your hours and performance will be tracked at our corporate website which you will be clocking in Monday to Friday. All training materials are free, they are provided by our supervisors online.
Typical Day of a Personal Assistant
We offer both full-time and part-time shifts starting at 9am your time; working in the evenings is not an option. A typical day starts with clocking into the corporate website and receiving a list of tasks for the day. Each Personal Assistant is assigned to a supervisor, who provides instructions as well as additional information and support on the position routine. A supervisor can call Personal Assistants and monitor their activities online during the day; by the end of the day every Personal Assistant submits a short progress report to the supervisor and clocks out.
Compensation and Benefits
All Personal Assistants are eligible for:
– Starting base pay of $3800 per month for full-time or $2000 per month for part-time;
– Monthly performance bonuses up to 100% of the base pay;
– Medical benefits, profit sharing and 401k after the first 2 months of work;
– 21+ days of paid vacation per year available in 2 months.
In addition to the fixed salary we also offer multiple bonuses based on your individual performance and clients’ feedback. In other words, if you successfully perform your tasks, manage to meet deadlines, work with more than one client and they are satisfied with your services, your wages per month can be doubled with bonuses.
To apply for the Personal Assistant position, please reply to my email and let me know when you can start: I will follow up with our employment package for review. If you are a business owner, we can sign a contract corp-to-corp. Please note that we never request any payments from applicants in order to ensure employment!
—
Best regards,
Alicia Lee, HR Manager
Virtuoso Assistant LLC
Phone: (412) 200-5661
Thank you for sharing this information. My suspicions were correct, I just did a post about this Virtuoso Assistant a few days ago.
What you are saying has to be true. I received a email about working at home as a VA back in October by someone named Erica. I even spoke to her. I did not proceed to move forward at the time because of my busy schedule.
That’s been several months ago. Today I decided to move forward and when I sent the email it came back undelivered.
Below is the email that I received from Erica:
Good afternoon,
My apologies for a late reply! In the attachment you will find our
standard Employment Agreement for review, please take your time to read
it, as it includes important information on the job duties, pay, schedule,
benefits, etc. Additional information about the company can be found at
our official website: http://www.personalassistancesolutions.com.
We offer a 1-year contract, which is prolonged automatically, so this is
permanent employment. Moreover, we are very interested in working with you
for a long time: there is a great demand on experienced VAs in the job
market, and it’s much more convenient to work with people you have
invested time and resources in, rather than constantly look for new ones.
Please note that this is a home-based job, and your communication with
clients and your supervisor will be performed online, at our corporate
website.
There are 2 work shift options: you can work either part-time (20 hours
per week), or full-time (40 hours per week). The hours in the Employment
Agreement are given for YOUR time zone; they include an optional lunch
break for 1 hour: if you don’t need one, you can simply start later or
finish your day earlier. Unfortunately, evening hours aren’t an option. It
is possible to start working part-time and switch to full-time later (or
vice versa); however, you will need to notify us at least in 2 weeks prior
to the desired schedule changes.
Regarding the pay: the starting salary is $3200 per month for full-time
and $1800 per month for part-time; this is a guaranteed monthly salary,
it’s not commission-based. All numbers are given before taxes: you will
receive a W4 form to fill out, which will be used to calculate your state
income tax deductions. We would also add a bonus in the amount of 20% of
your monthly pay to your paycheck, if there have been no complaints both
from the client on your services, and from your supervisor on your
performance. However, if you have been rude to a client, failed to meet
the given deadline for an assignment, or showed up late for work without a
prior notice to your supervisor, your bonus will most likely be cancelled;
some penalties also may be applied.
Finally, the training: there is a free online training course for 1-2
days, which are considered as your first days of work and are paid by the
company. The training materials will be available upon your signing all
paperwork and officially becoming a new employee of Emacity Ventures. Your
assigned supervisor will be helping you with your first tasks: sending you
detailed guidelines, giving you hints and recommendations and taking you
step-by-step through the whole process.
In order to proceed, please print out the Employment Agreement, fill in
your contact details and put the start date of your choice, then sign the
document, scan it and send back to me by email. If you don’t have a
scanner, you can simply make a legible photo of a signed contract and
email it to me. Also, since your job duties will require the access to
personal, financial and confidential information of our clients, a
background check is a must for all employees. Please fill in and sign the
Background Check Authorization Form and send it to me as well.
As soon as I receive your signed paperwork and the results of the
background check, I will send you the rest of forms to fill out, such as
the W4, 1099, payroll, etc. We’re looking for people who can start working
with us ASAP, preferably this week. If you have questions, please feel
free to call me or email them to me as well.
Yes that website was reported for fraud and shut down, but then of course they simply registered another website to continue their scam which I believe has also since been shut down as well. I’m sure you are so glad you didn’t move forward! Thank you for the information and your comment!