"Birlasoft" Fronting as Emcure Pharmaceuticals Attempted cashier check scam Internet

First off let me start by stating that I am not entirely sure whether or not either Birla Soft or Emcure are actually connected to this incident. But the individuals who were pepetrating this act were using these companies' names during this "process". More on that within the report.

I am currently searching for a job and have been applying to several places through indeed, simplyhired, and snagajob. This particular case came from an application that I filled out through snagajob from a company called Birla Soft. The job is titled "Phone scheduler/Customer Service Rep/Customer Account Rep". The job description is as follows: 

Description: Recommends potential products or services to management by collecting customer information and analyzing customer needs. Contributes to team effort by accomplishing related results as needed. Attract potential customers by answering product and service questions; Must Be reliable, and able to work independently. Must have people skills be friendly, outgoing, and professional. Please submit resume Customer service/Marketing experience preferred but not necessary. Requirements: •Minimum of 1-2 yrs experience Call Center experience or similar Customer Service experience •Strong listening & communication skills •Superb ability to provide excellent customer service at all times •Data Entry •Basic to intermediate computer skills •Dedication and hard-work ethic •Strong typing skills •Fast learner •Dedicated & strong attendance skills

 

Keep this in mind. Later on when I describe the job functions that are mentioned during my "interview" there will be discrepancies.

I was contected about a day or two later informing me that I will be interviewed at 11AM via Yahoo Messanger. Although instead of the interview being for Birla Soft it was for Emcure. I recieved that email barely an hour beofre this interview. I hadn't seen it until I got a text from the "recruiter".

So here are a few of red flags. First why was there no mention that this posting was for a pharmaceutical company, not a software and IT company? Also this interview is being conducted via a messaging app. This is a job where I would be contacting customers over the phone, why wouldn't they at least conduct a phone interview to see how my phone etiquette is? Additionally the phone number I got the text from was a 458 number, which is in Oregon. This job was supposed to be based in the New York Metro area. Emcure's HQ is located in New Jersey according to their official webpage. 

At this point doubt was creeping into my mind, but I decided to continue since I had gotten this far. The interview itself really didn't help matters though. First the man who was interviewing me copy and pasted a company description from wikipedia along with teh job description. And since it was an interview I was waiting for him to introduce himself or to at least ask me a question. He didn't send me anything else for about 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes he sent me a "buzz". For those who haven't used Yahoo Messanger, a "buzz" is an audible alert that someone sends you if they think you are away from the computer to remind you that you are conversing with them. So after that I replied affirming that I had read this.

Our exchange continued to be quite awkward, with no real interview questions coming up. The next thing that caught me off guard was that this position suddenly went from what seemed to be an office job to a work-at-home position. There was absolutely no mention of this being a work-at-home job in the job description. The pretext was that they were going to be opening several offices in the NY Metro area within a month. But when I asked what location all the interviewer told me was Brooklyn (it was the listed location, more on this later as well). 

Once again I was placed in deeper doubt about this position, but it still seemed like a god opportunity. After all I wouldn't have a problem working from home for a month. The problems with the interview and the nature of the job continued though. Even though the job description was reestablished early on the list of responsibilities expanded later on in the interview with one glaring ommision. Contact with the customer. The interviewer continued to talk about data entry and even accounting work (and I can safely say that I'm not qualified for such work, but they offered training), but not once did he mention anything about contacting customers to assist them as was mentioned in the job description. 

The other thing that bothered me about the interview was the fact that the interviewer had several instances of bad grammer and misspellings. I know I'm not perfect myself, but these were glaring mistakes that I wouldn't expect from a professional. And what really came off as unprofessional was his continual use of the "buzz". Its really bad IM etiquette to continually "buzz" someone. And it just made me all the more suspicious. Why hurry me to respond, especially since for much of the time I wasn't even being asked questions about myself and my qualifications?

The final straw was when I had moved in the direction of accepting the job. I hadn't actually accepted it, but I was asking questions as if I were expecting to start the job. Since I would be working from home I wanted to know what software I would need. The interviewer told me that they would be sending me a check in order for me to pay for the software I needed and it was a laundry list of software. It seemed excessive and once again I saw nothing that was related to the customer contact portion of the job. My other problem is that if this was legitamitely from Emcure, why wouldn't they just provide me with the software? They are a large enough company to be able to do so. 

The interviewer then told me that I had to accept the job in the same day and that I would be starting at the start of the next week. He also emailed me a picture of a check for a rather large amount. It was here where I finally just cut things off. First it was a cashier's check and I have read plenty about cashier's check fraud. Second the check was supposedly from PNC Bank location, with a Phoneix address. I stepped back for a second. This was supposedly a company from NJ, hiring for a position in Brooklyn, I had gotten a text from an Oregon area code, and now a cashier's check from Arizona? This just wasn't right, but what was worse was that when I checked the address that was on the check there was no PNC Bank there. It was actually a National Bank of Arizona. What's worse was that there was a picture of a check that he was sending to someone else that he seemed to be interviewing. Completely irresposible, unprofessional, and totally a scam.

After leaving the conversation and blocking the interviewer from my contact list and phone number I got another email for a job acceptance letter. It once again reitterated that I had to accept the job on the same day that I was interviewed. I checked where it came from and the sender's name was different from the name of the person that interviewed me. Another red flag came from the email address. The website on the address was emcure-pharma.com. When I typed in the address it took me to a vista-print domain host webpage. The site did not exist. 

I've also done some more research. It turns out that Emcure actually already has a location in Brooklyn, but it is in another zip code than the one listed on their website. I also visited Birlasoft's webpage and it seemed legitamate. I went into their career opportunities page, but did not see anything related to the job posting on snagajob. 

So in conclusion I just wanted to say that the companies named in this report may not actually be perpetrating this scam, but because they are not well known companies in the eyes of the public it seems that there are people attempting to use their names in this scam. I will be contacting these companies in order to verify this. In the mean time be very cautious in applying to positions with these companies if the listings are on internet job boards. Both have their own job pages where they list their opportunities and it seems they do not really list much on internet job boards.