Possible Job Fraud? Need help.
Hello everyone. I want to ask your help to investigate and help a friend of mine who has been looking for a job and was contacted by a company, apparently, is based in the Netherlands. Here goes the story:
The company is named Luxe Galaxy. Based on their website (www.luxegalaxy.com), this company books VIPs like politicians, businessmen, personalities, etc. for their trips. The company had a job posting in indeed.ca and my friend received an email about a job opportunity from them stating they are expanding to North America and starting an office here in Calgary (stated by their email that it is at Regus Calgary, 421 7 Ave SW which is TD Canada building). Initially, they asked for employment application which my friend has sent bad to them. It just asks for her name, address, phone number and her signature which are all in her resume (except her signature).
The next day, she received a confirmation and that someone will be contacting her for this job. A couple days later, the North America Manager called her and informed her of the training and that there are just a couple of documents that they need to confirm her identity. My friend again, submitted the same information just like what is in her resume plus signature (name, address, ph #) her driver's licence. She scratched her DL's number on her document but the bar code ( which I noticed) is still there (I don't know if it will be of value if this is indeed a fraud). The company is the one that said to scratch the "numbers" from the documents that my friend will submit so she did. On the training documents that was sent to my friend, it states that while being trained, she will get paid by interact transfer. No bank accounts or other information (other than what's stated above) are submitted by my friend at this time.
From my investigations, here are the things I've noticed.
1. The company's address is on their website which is in Amsterdam. Their site LOOKS legit but when I do a google search. there has been no information about their company. Via google maps, looking for their address, I do not see their name on the map (unless they really opted out from being in google?). I am trying to figure out at this time also how I could contact some company in Netherlands to verify this company's legitimacy; it is in Dutch language therefore, might take me some time today.
2. I called their toll free number (1 (800) 968-5175); sounds legit also but noticed that one option is when they want to contact an agent, it is done via email.
3. There were a couple of posts in Google that states this is a scam from kijiji but you all know how kijiji is.
4. Their website is a ".com" website which I thought was skeptical being a Dutch company. Looks like a quite simpler website too for the kind of work they do. I don't know also if it matter but when I look up the website and do a WHOIS lookup, it's a godaddy website of where the registrant is based on Arizona (I'm not an expert on this but I just thought I look up).
That's pretty much my friend's story. What do you guys think? I am very concern about the information that my friend has provided to the company so far if it is indeed a fraud. Would they be able to access her accounts? Bank account etc. though she has not provided any of these? Do you guys think it is a fraud? What further steps can be done to verify its legitimacy?
Thank you everyone for your help.
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