Government Job Assistance Scams

Quite often on job sites and in classified advertising, there are ads stating they can get you U.S. Government jobs. For a fee these ads claim they can guarantee a position.

In most instances, people are directed to a toll free number, where someone tries to sell them study materials for a fee. These fraudulent services have also been known to lie about the availability of specific jobs in an area to reel in a customer (victim).

Many of these services will not give you any better chance of obtaining the job than if you applied for it yourself.

If you have been the victim of one of these scams call the Federal Trade Commission: 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357) or visit their website at www.ftc.gov and file a complaint. You can also complain to your state attorney general, or the Better Business Bureau.

Free information on government jobs can be found at www.usajobs.opm.gov. The bottom line is that information on civil service employment is in the public domain and no one should be charging for it.

Here is a link to an earlier post on identity theft occurring on job sites:

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/07/internet-resume-posting-and-fraud.html

To view the Federal Trade Commission's Alert on this activity, click here.

Opt Out From Becoming a Victim

For years, big businesses and specifically marketing gurus have been selling your personal information. Not only does this provide opportunities for criminals to steal your identity, but the offers (themselves) can be pretty darned annoying. There is now a service sponsored by the major credit bureaus in the United States, which gives you the opportunity to stop them from selling your information.

Just go to www.optoutprescreen.com and tell them to stop selling your information. You can also call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT.

It's a small step and won't stop all the junk mail from coming to your address, but it will help simplify your life and minimize your risk of becoming a victim of identity theft.

Another great resource in the era of Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds is the Federal Trade Commission's "Do Not Call List." They now accept cell phone numbers, also: http://www.ftc.gov/donotcall/

More Allegations of Fraud in Iraq

In the middle of July, I did a post on fraud involving $300 million in arms deals in Iraq.

http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/2005/07/fraud-allegations-on-weapon-purchases.html

In an updated article put out by Knight Ridder, the total amount of the fraud has grown to over 500 million in weapons deals arranged by "middlemen, who reneged on promises after being paid or took huge kickbacks."

The total of the contracts being investigated total over 1.3 billion.

"The Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit, in a report reviewed by Knight Ridder, describes transactions suggesting that senior U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials in the Defense Ministry used three intermediary companies to hide the kickbacks they received from contracts involving unnecessary, overpriced or outdated equipment."

Although, the report states that no U.S. advisors were involved, the contracts were under the supervision of the embassy. The report also indicates that several american diplomats are extremely angry and feel they were duped, although the report is also questioning how american advisors could have been so close to the process and not noticed.

The Board of Supreme Audit published the following findings:

"-Multimillion-dollar contracts were awarded to favored weapons suppliers without a bidding process and without the required approval from the prime minister's office. Investigators wrote that the chief procurer went "beyond his authority" in purchasing equipment.

-Senior Iraqi officials kept little or no record of major purchases, sometimes noting lucrative deals in "undated and unnumbered" memos. Nearly all purchases contained a clause - unusual in international contracting of this magnitude - that required the contract's full value to be paid up front in cash.

-Instead of buying directly from a foreign company or government, Iraqi arms procurers hired third-party companies to negotiate the contracts. When Iraqi leaders later complained about unfulfilled contracts, they discovered they had no recourse to demand a refund because the payments were made to Iraqi middlemen who vanished after receiving the millions. "The undertakings make no obligation ... toward the Iraqi Ministry of Defense," according to the report.

-The sole beneficiary on 43 of the 89 contracts was a former currency-exchange operator, Nair Mohamed al-Jumaili, whose name doesn't even appear on the contracts. At least $759 million in Iraqi money was deposited into his personal account at a bank in Baghdad, according to the report. Internal records incorrectly "indicated that the Ministry of Defense signed contracts with Poland, Arab countries, the United States and Europe, but we discovered that all contracts were signed and executed with Iraqi suppliers," the report said."


Again, allegations, such as these, will do nothing, but inspire the lunatics professing "jihad." Our sons and daughters are in harm's way and some are making the ultimate sacrifice, daily. We owe it to them to ensure that this is investigated and that the people attempting to profit through fraudulent means are brought to justice and severely punished.

For more details on this, click on the title of this post.

How Much Do We Trust Government Agencies?

A lot of us are worried about our privacy, especially in post 9-11 environment. The Ponemon Institute recently did a survey of about 6300 citizens about how much they trust federal agencies with our personal information. The results show that we trust the U.S. Postal Service with our personal information more than the CIA, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

According to the study, 83 percent of the people surveyed said that protecting their personal information is important to them. Is there an opportunity for some agencies to show the people they serve that they are trustworthy?

For a copy of the full report you can request it at research@ponemon.org.

For the full article by Dr. Larry Ponemon go to:

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/020104/ponemon.html