We then looked a bit closer at the email address the job offer had been sent from and it turned out that they had bought the domain firstblocks(dot)capital – I am not going to link to it here, I don’t want Google to index it higher than it should be – instead of firstblock.capital. They had copied our complete website and it seemed they are now recruiting fake staff.
Among others the recruited staff have to provide copies of their IDs and and address proofs, so likely they are just trying to steal people’s identities.
First Block Capital only hires people after in-person interviews in our office and we do not offer any remote positions (at least not a position where you will work remote from day one onwards). So if you receive such an offer this is not from us. Please check the email and the website, if they are from First Blocks Capital that is not us.
We put a notice on the contact page of our website, so we hope people will see it if they do some research on the company that hires them. The reason I write this post is also so that people will hopefully Google their job offer and find this article.
Many thanks for this information….. This is to let you know that your prompt response to the scam alert just saved me and I’m sure it will save many other unsuspecting job seekers out there.
Marc, Wow, this is ridiculous! And I saw your photo with your team on this fake website. Actually I wonder what we can do with these kind of fake sites… How can one report them? I would like to follow up with this story, if there will be any updates.
You can’t do anything about it unfortunately. I guess people should do their research, if they do so they will quickly find this post.
I have applied to that web-site but I will not provide any more details.
Thank you
I just received a cheque from them, and they want me to deposit the money into my bank and then send it to the IT people for the remote equipment. After seeing this site I now know they are fake and I blocked all there communications and other things.
@Celina, thanks for your comment. Maybe they are looking to launder money through other people’s bank accounts? You may want to get in touch with the police. Certainly don’t cash the cheque or they may come after you. Glad I posted this on my blog and that you found it.
It would be good to buy multiple domains when initially setting up your legitimate website. So if your company web domain is say example.com, buy examples.com as well. You can even go further by squatting examplesucks.com et al. If similarly named domains are bought by scammers, you can’t do anything except maybe trying to buy their domain. Or if they forget to renew the domain when it expires, immediately buy it.