I received an e-mail at work from a Christopher Berry, who was supposedly the Human Resources Manager for a company called Web Ground Online. The e-mail stated that he had seen my resume on Monster and wanted me to apply for a position as a Paypal Gateway Administrator for his company. I went to the website online at webgroundonline.com and it seemed legit.
The position stated that it would pay $500 a week and I would be part of the Transfer Department Team and be responsible for the development, execution, and transferring electronic currency between Pay Pal, Western Union and Money Gram systems for our customers. My focus would be on operations, reporting, budgeting, and planning of the company's on-going paid initiatives.
I applied for the position and received an e-mail the next day from Christopher Berry stating that the Manager of the Transfer Department, Jessica Watson, would instruct me further on what to do. Needless to say, I was told that I would have to complete three "test" transactions. I had to set up a business account online with Paypal. Jessica Watson sent me an e-mail telling me the business information to put in for the account.
After I set up the account, I began receiving payments from people throughout the US in my account, but they were all in the amount of $204.00. The first time, I received 4 payments of $204.00 and was told to send $450 to a "Kazimir Prokopyuk" in Saint-Petersburg, Russia through Money Gram, which I did. I e-mailed Jessica Watson the confirmation number of the transaction. The next day, I received about 7 or 8 payments of $204.00, all from different people's credit cards. I was then sent an e-mail to send $1270.00 again to Kazimir Prokopyuk, but this time through Western Union.
At this point, I became concerned and e-mailed Jessica, asking her when the training would be complete and if sending the transactions was the actual "training." She replied that it was and there was only one final training transaction left. This time, I was to send $1050.00 to a female in Russia. I received about 5 credit card payments of $204.00 into my paypal account for that. I e-mailed Christopher Berry and asked him when I would be receiving my first check. He stated that I would receive my $500 check as soon as I completed the final test transaction.
Meanwhile, Jessica Watson told me that the reason I was conducting the transactions was to send money to their "internationalbusiness partners." After I completed the final transaction, I never heard from Christopher Berry or Jessica Watson again. I sent them numerous e-mails but they never contacted me. To top it all off, a few days later, 3 payments that were submitted to my account were disputed by the owner of the credit cards stating that the transactions were unauthorized.
So not only was I not paid for my work, but my PayPal account is negative over $600. What frightens me is that other people may dispute their transactions and ultimately I am responsible for all of the money since it came through my paypal account. If this is true, I will ultimately end up paying for almost $3000 in disputed transactions because of this rip off.
Missdiva01
Atlanta, Georgia
U.S.A.