Fake Job Offer

I reported the email copied below to my email provider for them to research. It is a fraudulent offer for a seemingly lucrative job that entices with enough details to sound possibly legitimate.

From: [Hotmail email address deleted]
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010
To: [CS email address deleted]
Subject: e-Job position

Hello.

We are currently looking for a few qualified individuals to become members of our team. If you are looking for new experience, new accomplishments in your career, and are willing to receive better salary you are welcome to join our company.

Job Description:
The task of the Transfer Manager is collecting payments from customers in timely manner and to solve issues associated with these tasks.
If you don't have bank account, our manager will find nearest bank, and open a new checking account there.
All fees will be paid by our company.
Every payment order will be accompanied with detailed instructions. It is a part-time, work-at-home position.
We are offering to you a commission based position. You will get 8% of each processed payment immediately, right after you accomplish the task.

General requirements:
* Applicants must be of legal age;
* Good communications skills;
* Any experience in customer service sphere is appreciated;
* Willingness to work from home, take responsibility and achieve higher goals;
* Experience in Internet usage;
* Honesty, responsibility and promptness in operations;
* Proficient in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word is a plus.
Salary: $700-$1400 per week

This job will allow you to:
* work efficiently from home;
* increase available personal time;
* get financial independence for less time than it's usually required;
* develop high self-respect and esteem.

Working hours are flexible. You can choose to perform the work when it is convenient to you.
The general requirement is to spend 30-60 minutes a day for the work.
You will need to check your e-mail 3-5 times a day to see if there is any work for you.

If you are interested, please reply to this e-mail : [Yahoo email address deleted]

The first red flag is the email is simply not addressed to my email account at all. This is because the spammer blind copied thousands of email addresses to reduce the load on their end. Second red flag is the reply email address is not the same as the from email address. Not even the same company (the dot com part). Third red flag is the email addresses are from free email providers (Yahoo and Hotmail) rather than a legitimate business email account. Fourth red flag is there is not any business named at all, just "our company."

Before I read the email contents I knew it was a bogus offer. Unlike other emails I read for similar bogus offers this one did not have glaring grammar and spelling errors. There is an obvious effort to appeal to working from home and stating the benefits for the person reading the email. Of course, it also fails to mention what possible use that person could serve other than managing an email and bank account - not exactly hard to find skills that warrant an email mass marketing campaign.

Best case scenario is a legitimate money laundering scheme where mobsters in Russia filter funds through many individual accounts to hide finances from regulators. Next best scenario is the "company" wants to pull off fraud on the banks using individual accounts. Third best scenario is the "company" wants to defraud you of your money by getting personal information from one bank account to leverage to to get your credit and/or assets.

I am not sure who replies to these emails, how the email providers like Yahoo and Hotmail manage them, which agency monitors this type or criminal behavior, nor how cases are pursued against the perpetrators. The only recourse I am aware of is to submit the email using the phishing scam button. I doubt they will do anything but it feels better than merely deleting the email.