Scam Type
Employment Scam
Business Name Used
Unavailable
Date Reported
June 21, 2023
Postal Code
80631
Total Dollars Lost
$ 1950
Scam Description
I was contacted by a person claiming to be Katherine Williams, an HR assistant for Guardian Probiotics Inc. She contacted me about a remote data entry job with pay rate of $27/hr. I was contacted by text message and asked to send my resume to hr@guardianprobiotics.net. Once I sent my resume she emailed and said that she was impressed with my qualifications and wanted me to fill out two forms to assess my fit for the role and the company. The first form was an Microsoft information form basically just standard things like name, email, phone number. The only weird question on that form that raised some suspicion was a question about what the name of my bank is I use (not banking info just the name of the bank) to make sure it would work with their payroll systems. The other form was an interview questionnaire. There was a mixture of free response and multiple-choice interview style questions with some being timed and others not. Once I submitted both forms, I was notified the next morning over text and email that they made a decision quicker than anticipated and I was offered the job. The email even had a formal offer letter attached that I was to sign and return. The offer letter was addressed from the COO of Guardian Probiotics, Glenn Dasher. Part of the letter stated that the company would send me a check for office supplies to get started working from home and that Ms. Williams, my original HR contact would walk me through that process of ordering the required supplies through the company approved vendor. I signed and returned the offer letter to Katherine Williams who then informed me to supply her with the following information so that she could register me on their employee portal: Your Full Name Gender DOB Current home address + Apt#, if any City, State & Zip code Direct Cell Preferred email address I supplied the information and was given the login info for the employee portal located at https://guardianprobiotics.org/employeeportal/public. My login username was myname@guardianprobiotics.org. I was told to try to login to make sure everything worked on my end. I was able to login into the portal and see what looked like a pretty normal employee portal with the information, a message welcoming on stating that I would fill out my W4 on my start date in a week, and even the ability to submit leave requests. Ms. Williams also informed me that I would need to set up a telegram account to communicate with the company until my home office was set up at which time, I would be able to communicate over company email (I was led to believe this was for privacy and security reasons). I informed Ms. Williams that I created the telegram account, and she told me to send her a message at the following link: t.me/kat_williams. This account had a profile picture and a bio that stated HR Assistant, which matched everything I knew of Katherine Williams. I was sent a message and a video from Ms. Williams welcoming me on board. The woman in the video matched the profile picture of the account but the video was strange though you could tell she was clearly reading a prompt and weirdly emphasizing words (not talking how normal people talk). She then messaged telling me how she was going to be the one to walk me through the onboarding process and that we would start with getting me the necessary office equipment. Ms. Williams claimed that checks to remote employees had been getting lost in the mail recently and that the accounting department advised me to send checks over secure email going forward, but that would require me to have a mobile app for my bank. She asked if I had a mobile app for my bank. I was emailed a check for $1,950.00. I deposited the check through my mobile banking app, and it was successful. Once this money was in my account, I had to wire $1,900 to the supposed vendor. Once she got my confirmation of the wire transfer, she told me that she would get back to me when the vendor received the wire transfer on their end. It was at this point she stopped replying to me. Come a few days later when I checked my telegram messages with her, they were deleted, and her profile picture was removed. Prior to the day of finding this out, I took screenshots of the vendor’s information for my records, and I still have a physical copy of the printed check from my email.
