AliExpress Work From Home Job Scam
Author: James Greening
Work from Home Job Scams have been around for decades but with remote work becoming increasingly common, fake remote job offers have become more believable and attract many more victims.
A ScamAdviser follower from the UK - let’s call him Harry - shared their recent experience with us regarding a work from home job offer appearing to be from the Chinese ecommerce giant AliExpress. Read on to know how scammers are stealing money from job-seekers under the guise of hiring them for a job with AliExpress.
Fake AliExpress Work From Home Job Offer
The scam began with an unsolicited SMS message stating that AliExpress is “looking for 200 part-time jobs” to help the company ‘expand their business’. Though no additional details have been provided, an attractive pay of £50 to £200 per day is being offered for the job. Interested candidates are asked to get in touch via WhatsApp.
The poor use of English and asking candidates to communicate via WhatsApp are the first red flags as legitimate organizations do not hire in this manner.
Even though Harry suspected that this was a scam, he contacted the recruiter via WhatsApp for more information. The person at the other end introduced themself as Zora from AliExpress.
Zora continued on by giving a vague and confusing explanation of what the job entails. The scammer then asked Harry to register on the website aliexonpre.com which does not seem to have any real association with AliExpress.
The domain registration information of AlieXonpre reveals that it is a new website created anonymously in June 2022.
After registering on the platform and performing some menial tasks, Harry requested to be paid for the day. This is when the story took a different turn. First, Zora asked Harry to move the conversation to Telegram. The likely reason for this is that scammers operate in teams and Zora on WhatsApp is likely a low-level scammer passing on the victim to the high-level scammer who operates via Telegram.
Zora’s display picture on Telegram confusingly showed a white woman even though Zora’s poor English peppered with Chinese expressions gave the impression that she must be Chinese. A quick image search revealed that the image of Zora has been stolen from a Twitter profile.
After contacting Zora on Telegram, Harry was told that in order to ‘become an official employee of the mall’, he must first pay $59 to upgrade to the level of VIP1.
The above screenshot provides some clues that AlieXonpre is likely to be operating a pyramid scheme. The VIP1 package is referred to as an ‘investment’ and a ‘commission’ of 5.8% is also mentioned. Therefore, AlieXonpre does not seem to be an online job platform and rather is likely to be a fraudulent and illegal investment platform.
When Harry became even more suspicious and called the scammer out for lying, Zora deleted all the messages and threatened to call the police.
Harry was fortunate that he follows ScamAdviser and was aware of such scams being carried out online. Sadly, many others aren’t aware and end up investing a lot of time into fake platforms like AlieXonpre. Once a person has invested time, they also feel obligated to invest money at the demand of the scammer due to the false hope that they will be compensated for their effort.
If you receive an unsolicited job offer such as the one Harry got, it would be wise to remember the adage, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”
Report a Scam!
Have you fallen for a hoax, bought a fake product? Report the site and warn others!
Scam Categories
Help & Info
Popular Stories
As the influence of the internet rises, so does the prevalence of online scams. There are fraudsters making all kinds of claims to trap victims online - from fake investment opportunities to online stores - and the internet allows them to operate from any part of the world with anonymity. The ability to spot online scams is an important skill to have as the virtual world is increasingly becoming a part of every facet of our lives. The below tips will help you identify the signs which can indicate that a website could be a scam. Common Sense: Too Good To Be True When looking for goods online, a great deal can be very enticing. A Gucci bag or a new iPhone for half the price? Who wouldn’t want to grab such a deal? Scammers know this too and try to take advantage of the fact. If an online deal looks too good to be true, think twice and double-check things. The easiest way to do this is to simply check out the same product at competing websites (that you trust). If the difference in prices is huge, it might be better to double-check the rest of the website. Check Out the Social Media Links Social media is a core part of ecommerce businesses these days and consumers often expect online shops to have a social media presence. Scammers know this and often insert logos of social media sites on their websites. Scratching beneath the surface often reveals this fu
So the worst has come to pass - you realise you parted with your money too fast, and the site you used was a scam - what now? Well first of all, don’t despair!! If you think you have been scammed, the first port of call when having an issue is to simply ask for a refund. This is the first and easiest step to determine whether you are dealing with a genuine company or scammers. Sadly, getting your money back from a scammer is not as simple as just asking. If you are indeed dealing with scammers, the procedure (and chance) of getting your money back varies depending on the payment method you used. PayPal Debit card/Credit card Bank transfer Wire transfer Google Pay Bitcoin PayPal If you used PayPal, you have a strong chance of getting your money back if you were scammed. On their website, you can file a dispute within 180 calendar days of your purchase. Conditions to file a dispute: The simplest situation is that you ordered from an online store and it has not arrived. In this case this is what PayPal states: "If your order never shows up and the seller can't provide proof of shipment or delivery, you'll get a full refund. It's that simple." The scammer has sent you a completely different item. For example, you ordered a PlayStation 4, but instead received only a Playstation controller. The condition of the item was misrepresented on the product page. This could be the