Habitat for Humanity Work At Home Scam


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So if you're a loyal subscriber that's read my work at home scam section from top to bottom, one of the things I've warned against is that some scam artist will use the name and contact information of legitimate companies to lure you into a sense of security. This tends to happen in emailed work at home job offers. Most of the times, the scammers will only reference smaller, lesser known companies. But recently that's changed. I don't know if scammers have had a bowl of Wheaties or grown a bigger pair, but now they're using larger company's identity to push their work at home scams.

The Wisconsin Better Business Bureau (BBB) recently issued an alert regarding a current work-at-home scam using a well-known charity, Habitat for Humanity. In case you don't know, Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian ministry founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a decent, safe and affordable place to live. They build with people in need regardless of race or religion. This is a great company that does great work. Leave it to a scammer to corrupt such a noble cause.

How The Scam Works:

1. A work job seeker answers an ad in their local newspaper for a work-at-home job as a Regional Donations Coordinator for Habitat for Humanity International or whatever title the scammers are now using.

2. You apply for the job via email and are easily accepted. You would think there would be a lot more qualifications required for this position and a background check.

3. You're sent a check, which is allegedly a donation, and instructed to keep $350 of it as your payment and wire the remainder to another Habitat for Humanity official that is allegedly in charge of home construction projects.

4. If you have deposited the check into your persona account and wired the remainder, as instructed, you would be in a world of hurt. Because the check is counterfeit and guess who ends up owing the bank the amount of money withdrew against the check deposit? You!

This is basically another example of the check and wire transfer scam article we wrote a few moons ago. I've said this before and I'll say it again, scam artist are lazy and tend to repeat themselves. After all, if it ain't broke then why fix it? They may vary some small details but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck then it's a duck.

So just keep this in mind if you're getting great job offers out of no where.

How To Spot A Fake Emailed Job Offer!

1. There are misspellings and grammar mistakes littered all over their emailed job offer.

2. The email address is from a free account like yahoo, gmail, aol, etc. It should be from the company's domain. (Hr@RealCompanyName.com)

3. Contact information isn't matching up. If they reference a website but their email address isn't from that website, visit the site, find a contact form use it to contact someone at the company. You want to verify that they have the employee named in the email and the position in question is real.

4. When in doubt just follow the steps in our scam video. Bad news tends to travel fast so chances are this scam artist has been discussed on one of the many other fine scam fighting websites.

Hope this helps. If you've been a victim of this particular scam or one like it, why not do your part and share it below. You have nothing to be ashamed of. We've all been there. If you're looking for a real work at home job, just visit our work at home guide now.

I hope this helps. If it does, please share this article or tweet about it.

4 thoughts on “Habitat for Humanity Work At Home Scam”

  1. This is good advice, don’t forget that you can also use the WOT extension in Firefox!

    – How To Spot A Fake Emailed Job Offer!

    1. There are misspellings and grammar mistakes littered all over their emailed job offer.

    2. The email address is from a free account like yahoo, gmail, aol, etc. It should be from the company’s domain. (Hr@RealCompanyName.com)

    3. Contact information isn’t matching up. If they reference a website but their email address isn’t from that website, visit the site, find a contact form use it to contact someone at the company. You want to verify that they have the employee named in the email and the position in question is real.

    4. When in doubt just follow the steps in our scam video. Bad news tends to travel fast so chances are this scam artist has been discussed on one of the many other fine scam fighting websites.

    Reply
    • Randy,

      Thanks! I agree with most of your advice except for the WOT extension. For awhile I used it but then it labelled my own legitimate sites as a threat or scam. That’s when it help less validity for me. lol

  2. This is just sick. I donated some time to HFH when I was a teenager, and it was wonderful knowing I was helping someone get a house. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised… I’ve seen Nigerian scammers try to use the Red Cross, too, asking for donations. This is just insidious though; it sounds like they’re getting smarter.

    There’s another version of this scam I don’t know if you’ve seen… it looks like an apology from the Nigerian government, offering to refund you everything you lost in an online scam. These guys actually go further than just emails; a co-worker who retired has been getting calls at my office, from a heavily-accented man, asking if she remembers getting scammed out of a lot of money a couple years ago. We’ve all told this guy she doesn’t work here anymore, but he ignores that and goes on to offer to help her “recover” the money she lost. We know this is complete BS, because she has family still at our office. We’ve told the guy to contact her at home… but he calls the office at least every other day. damn scammers…

    Reply
    • Hi Gretchen,

      I hear you. I felt the same way when I heard about this scam. It’s like they have no boundaries. The red cross one is a new one to me. So thanks for bringing it to my attention. Scammers are persistent bunch. They’re like roaches. lol

      Thanks for chiming in though. I appreciate it.

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