Complaint Review: Freelance Home Writers

I had been watching help wanted ads on Craig's List and could tell many of them were come-ons for something other than what was being advertised, but this one looked legit:

>Professional and well known commercial general contractor seeking a Construction Project Administrator/Project Coordinator. Duties to include but not limited to the following: primary production of project documents, assist project managers and estimators with information management and distribution, pre and post bid document control, general administrative support for invoicing, record keeping, and contract administration. Assist Estimating and Project Management related coordination. Ideal candidate will have experience working as a project administrator for a commercial general contractor and be familiar with construction terminology and paperwork.Requirement:5 years in the construction industry! Organized and strong focus to detail and accuracy of work, ability to communicate openly and effectively both verbally and in writing, experience in providing administrative support to multiple parties simultaneously, exceptional problem solving, critical thinker, desire to continually tackle new challenges! Team oriented and hard working! Ability to maintain >accurate records and filing system.

So I answered it only to find it was also a come-on from your friends at Freelance Home Writers, at it turned out. The return email to my response was from a "hotmail.com" account for a work-at-home Internet job, and the address at the bottom telling me I could "opt out" by mail was exactly the same as in the other Freelance Home Writers reports on RipOffReport.

The email included a link to their site which is camouflauged by a "clicks.AWeber.com" email address--A Weber is an email "marketing" company which helps "marketers" get their info out. Look them up for explanation. The email also has this note at the end:

>You received this offer after Opting In to our list at 04/01/2009 08:41: AM with ip address xxx.xxx.x.xxx (my IP addy) If you wish to Opt-Out from further emails, or >received this erroneously, please unsubscribe at the link below.

The link in question was another "clicks.AWeber.com," and I have not bothered to click through. I then applied for the same "job" again using another name and email addy and got the same response from different "person" with different "hotmail.com" address.

So they are attempting to recruit participants in their scam by planting phony help-wanted ads on Craig's List and who knows where else, and there must be some sort of legal cover they receive by putting the "opting in" note on the email--the time specified was indeed the time I responded via email to what I thought was the legit job ad.

I reported all this to Craig's List, but I gather by reading their forums that this is not an uncommon occurrence, and some say only about 10% of all help wanted ads posted are legit, so I don't expect to get much in the way of a response from them. If this sort of thing keeps up, the nation's newspapers may begin to reclaim their classified ads again.

Leo
High Springs, Florida
U.S.A.