Access-HelpLLC Chuck Phillips Another VIP assistant scam Florida, Florida

Another variant on the concierge VIP service scam, this time with the website name access-helpLLC. I was contacted by 'Chuck Phillips' who said they saw my resume of Career Builder and was interested in hiring me if I could pass a two week trial period. The position was the usual, a part time personal assistant in the area to help VIP clients and the such. I was promised $800 at the end of the trial period, a corporate credit card and $1000 every two weeks with a 10% pay raise every 6 months.

The first task made sense, the typical pattern of this scam.  I was to research the cost of importing a 1999 Audi TT from Frankfurt to NYC. Here I was expecting to have to buy an American Audi TT for the German gentleman as you have to be dumb as a rock to want to import a used 99 Audi TT., thus revealing the scam. Unfortunately this didn't happen as after I told them the result I received the usual complement of great job your next assignment will be along soon.

Meanwhile I was researching the company. Their website states they are Time Magazine's #2 website of the year.  But which year? I asked Chuck for clarification, and got no answer. I went to Time.com and sifted through some of the website of the year awards and saw nothing in the way of a concierge service. I also tracked the origin of the access-helpLLC website. The first trace went to a store front in Bellington (?sp) Washington, but a deeper trace went to a server in Russia. I guess my first trace was to a hacked computer. But now at least we were getting somewhere.

The address for this business is to another virtual office center in sunny Florida, just like one of other scam concierge service. The phone actually has a answering machine. Which is unusual. Most have a dead number, but I did have one where I got to talk to a live lady with a think accent. Also, I did receive a call from this number concerning the second scam (upcoming) so it does look like the the phone is somehow used.

The final evidence I needed to make this 'official' was the second assignment where I was asked to replace a mammoth tusk carved statue of a mother and her child titled "Grace" on an obsidian base that had broke on transport from eastern Europe to LAX. Man this guy has the worst luck as the same statue broke about a year ago for this gentleman or for another gentlemen who bought the same statue and lost it exactly the same way (down to the plagiarized scam message).

All in all this wasn't a bad scam, a working phone, a nice address, prompt email attention  (but only during European banking hours, all business had to be done before 2 PM EST). Still it was amateurish recycling the exact same mammoth tusk statue used before when there is this wonderful fake webpage of statues to choose from (http://www.tfmamont.ru/gallery.html) which has since been taken down. I rate it 2 out of 5 stars.