I saw an "Executive Assistant" position in Denver advertised on Craig's List and it said to email my resume, which I did. I thought I was sending it directly to the employer who was looking for this position. However, the next day I got a long, chatty email from someone claiming to be Sister Mary Joseph the CEO of a career search firm who said she would now be helping me in my job search.
She said the employer forwarded my resume to her and was very interested. She asked if I would be ready for phone and live interviews. She said there were many other employers who would be interested in someone with my "rich work history" and qualifications. The job salary that was posted on the add was quite high, but she did say that any fee would be paid by an employer.
All I needed to do was to go the "Careerexperts.org" which was her company website and have my resume upgraded.
Two things started to bother me about this: First of all a Catholic nun is not allowed to own and run a "for profit" business. I am Catholic and this sent a red flag. Nuns would rarely be involved in a business at all unless they were a charity.
Secondly, I did not want to have to re-do my resume for a fee. Of course there was a charge for this. I emailed Sister Mary Joseph back and told her I was interested in the position, but not in upgrading my resume. The charges for this were anywhere from $100 - $250.
I looked around the website at Careerexperts.org and noticed that you cannot contact this company directly. No address, phone, etc. I began to realize that this had to be a scam. The problem was — I had already sent my resume so now they had my personal information. If I had gone to their site and given them my credit card information to buy an "upgraded" resume, they would have had this information, too, and been able to really do some damage to me.
Sure enough, there are mentions of this employment scam by this same person elsewhere on the internet! One account said he is an identity thief and a sex assault perpetrator! Please beware and let others know about this type of scam. One of the online warnings said this person was from Atlanta and goes by many aliases. People need to be very careful about sending resumes and personal information to anyone!
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