VirtuosoAssist.com Virtual Assistant Job Scam
I was asked by a reader to check into a website at VirtuosoAssist.com. Seems they were contacted about a Virtual Assistant job from someone claiming to represent the business. Below is a screenshot of the website and what I discovered.
The website was just registered for one year on Dec 8, 2015 and below is the websites whois information:
Notice the phone # has a country code located in Germany and of course, as we saw in the last several scams we warned about, they are also using a disposable email service located at email-fake.com. They also have the business name listed here in the whois info as an LLC however, as we suspected, that name is NOT registered with the State of Pennsylvania at all.
At one time there WAS a legitimate “Web Design” business called Virtuoso Assistant located at 219 Stanford Ave in Pittsburgh under the phone # (877)520-1597. But it is unclear whether this business is still open and their website is no longer online. I do not believe they are in business any longer.
The phone number at the top of this suspicious website is (412) 200-5661 and on the home page it lists G & L Personal Assistants as the name of the business and info@glpersonalassistants.com as the email with a different phone # (570) 832-4500. However, on the “contact us” page the email address is info@virtuosoassist.com with the (412) 200-5661 phone #.
Interesting..we found out that G & L Personal Assistants has an identical website at glpersonalassistants.com (Created in Oct 2015 for one year) with the same information found on the home page at VirtuosoAssist.com. So they just copied the G&L website to the new domain without proofreading or editing all the contents.
Don’t Be A Money Mule!
Be very cautious..both of these sites appear to have stolen the identity of a once legitimate business and are using the legitimate information to apparently lure unsuspecting job seekers into a money mule scam.
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.
Scammers can use the information you provided them when you least expect it.. even YEARS from now! That’s why I Highly recommend you get some sort of ongoing identity protection such as the services offered at LifeLock-Visit Their Website Here!
Have you received a job offer email claiming to be from Virtuoso Assistants or any other suspicious email offering you a “job” you never applied for and not sure if it is a scam or not? 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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