Complaint Review: Merk

I responded to an ad on Craigslist for a position that claimed to be with Liberty Medical. You know the ones.. sending the diabetic medication to the home? It was very detailed in the job description and very believable.

I sent my resume, and recieved back an email from someone claiming to be with Merk and wanting me to process checks through my personal bank account. I have posted below, a portion of the ad, ( it was tooo long to post here ) and the response I got. I just want people who are job hunting to be aware that this scam is alive and well. I replied and asked how it is that I applied for one job with one company and another company answered me. I hope to post a reply soon. That is, if they reply.

Here is part of that ad:
Job Description
Shift: Days
Hourly/Salary:Hourly
Scheduled Work Hours:M-F Flex 8:00AM-6PM
Regular/Temporary:Regular
Principal Function:
To service customers through the completion of aging reports, inbound or outbound calls, denials and collection reports in a courteous, professional manner. Identifying the reason for call, utilizing the system to document and route for follow up. When applicable at point of contact, responding appropriately to their questions and resolving inquiries. Completing and/or updating all pertinent records in all proprietary systems to the point of total account resolution. High emphasis on collecting past due customer and insurance balances.

About Liberty
Over the past 18 years, more than a million people have relied on Liberty Medical for home delivery of their healthcare products. At Liberty, we are dedicated to quality products and real, personalized service for all our patients. We believe that if we can help people better manage their diabetes, they can have more time to focus on living their lives.

Liberty works with over a million diabetes patients, giving them the tools and support to mange their diabetes. In addition to Diabetes Supplies, Liberty also offers Pharmacy Products and medical specialty supplies. Liberty is a proud sponsor of the American Diabetes Association. Benefits Liberty offers a comprehensive benefits package which includes medical, life, dental, vision and supplemental insurance coverage, vacation, a generous holiday schedule, tuition reimbursement, an employee stock purchase plan and a 401(k).


I sent my resume, and a cover letter, and six days later recieved this:

Dear Applicant,

We've received your resume for the job of Account Receivable - AR & AP Position you applied for posted on Craigslist. Our HR Department has viewed your resume, and you have been selected among the successful applicants that will be filling the position of the Account Receivable Manager and customer services in our company. About Us The Merk Mutual Funds are managed by Merk Investments LLC, a Palo Alto, California, based SEC registered investment advisory firm. At Merk Investments, we believe sustainable wealth is built over the long term, with superior insights, clear focus and commitment. We strive to invest with discipline while adapting to changing environments. Merk Investments is making the Merk Hard Currency Fund and the Merk Asian Currency Fund available to retail investors to allow them to diversify their portfolios and through the Funds, invest in a basket of currencies. Your primary task as our accounts receivable pending the time we establish our branch office in your City is to coordinate payments from customers and help us with the payment process. Once orders are received and sorted we deliver the product to a customer. After this has been done the customer has to pay for the products but in most cases we make our clients prepay for orders or items they order for . About 90 percent of our customers prefer to pay through certified Checks or Money Orders drawn from the Canada based on the amount involved. We have decided to open this new contract to hire a job position for solving this problem. Our company use this process to test our Customer Services rep before you start working in our office as our Full time accounts receivable rep.

Summary of your First Primary task(Collection of Payments):

1. Receive payments (Made Payable to you) from our Customers or Clients.
2. Cash Payment at your Bank or any cashing facilities near you.
3. Deduct 10 % which will be your percentage/pay on Payment processed

Hope you will be of earnest assistant before we start running our branch office in your state, and then you will be working Full time i.e you will be working in our branch office in your state.

Get back to us with information below information for reconfirmation, so that we can add your mailing address to our Regional database and forward it to our customers for them to send payments .

Full Name:...................
Address:..............................
City:..............................
State:.............................
Postal Code:.............................
Home phone:.............................
Cell phone:..............................
Age:..............................
Gender......................... We will be updating you as soon as the payment is being sent to your home address and you will be directed as to where to have the remaining 90% of the money sent to, you will be wiring the money through instant transfers( Western Union/Money Gram), note that your 10% does not cover the cost of wiring the funds, you will have to deduct the wiring fees from the remaining 90%.I will let you know when you will get the first payment sent to you,kindly let me know as soon as you get them so I can tell you what to do with the funds after processing them.

Your response to this email is important , so that we can be sure you want to work for us and reconfirm your mailing address details we have in our database.

Sam Davies
Merk Mutual Funds


Now you tell me... if you apply for one job that is clearly a call center job, in the data entery, order processing field and recieved this as the reponse.. what would you think? I of course did not reply because this is not what I applied for and the orignal was an obvious hoax. And yes, I have contacted craigslist about this as well.

Dee
Federal Way, Washington
U.S.A.