You receive small orders every day, e.g. B. to test the user-friendliness of opening a bank account. But be careful: With this job, criminals steal your identity, warns our cooperation partner Watchlist Internet . The bank account created is used to launder money in your name!

The job as an app tester sounds promising: flexible working hours, home office and good pay. / Screenshot: Watchlist Internet
The job as an app tester sounds promising: flexible working hours, home office and good pay. / Screenshot: Watchlist Internet

Fake job offers

Page-rangers.de spreads fake job offers as “product testers”, “app testers” or “process testers” on the Internet. 450 euros for a mini-job, flexible working hours, hardly any requirements and a home office sounds quite promising. You supposedly get 2-3 jobs a week that you complete in 20-50 minutes. There is an extra 30-50 euros per order on top of the minimum wage.

The application is made via a form. You provide your name, address and contact details. You will then be invited to an interview. This takes place via live chat and goes well.

Activity: Open a bank account

Your first order of business is to open a bank account (e.g. with N26). You are told that the company tests the usability of banking systems and that the bank is an important customer. You should now open an account in your name. You go through the entire process with your own data and document everything with screenshots. You will only receive the telephone number and email address from your “supervisor”. Your “supervisor” explains to you that you are not actually opening the account, just a “demo account”. Also, you must never say that you are an app tester.

Attention: You could also receive other work orders, e.g. B. Receive and transfer transactions to the private bank account .

You can get the instructions in the live chat on page-rangers.de. Below is the chat history between page-rangers.de and a victim:

You will receive your work order via live chat. / Screenshots: Watchlist Internet
You will receive your work order via live chat. / Screenshots: Watchlist Internet

Beware: identity theft

Once you have opened the bank account and the verification process, you have provided the criminals with a bank account in your name. This account is now being used for money laundering. The criminals use it to let illegally earned money flow through this account, e.g. B. they list it as a target account for fake shops. It is also possible that they sell the bank account on the black market.

Remember: money laundering is a criminal offense. Even if you didn't know this job is fraudulent. Since you opened this account, you have unintentionally become involved in illegal activities. If the authorities come across your name as part of an investigation, you must prove that you had no idea that the job was intended to be criminal.

page-rangers.de misuses the imprint data of a real company

If you search the company name of page-rangers.de on the Internet, you will find out that it is a real company, because page-rangers.de misuses the data of an existing company. What's more, the Internet address of the real company is confusingly similar. Be very careful when checking company data and keep in mind that the information in the legal notice may be stolen. Always check data very carefully, criminals are very subtle!

How to spot fraudulent job offers

  • The pay is very good despite the low requirements.
  • You must disclose personal information as part of the job (e.g. opening accounts in your name or conducting corporate transactions through your personal bank account)
  • There is no personal contact, you communicate with your “supervisor” via WhatsApp or live chat.
  • There is hardly any information about the company on the internet.
  • You should transfer money to the company.

Only submit copies of ID cards with a watermark

Do not submit copies of ID online. If these end up in the wrong hands, a lot of damage can be caused.

If there is no other option, we recommend that you add a watermark to copies of your ID card. The watermark should contain the following information: purpose of the ID copy, who the copy is for, date of creation.

You can add watermarks using an image editing program, e.g. B. with paint. Also black out information that is not required by the recipient (e.g. ID number and signature). You can do this, for example, with a black bar.

Example: This is what a watermark can look like

Watermark copies of ID cards to protect against identity theft. / Graphic: Watchlist Internet
Watermark copies of ID cards to protect against identity theft. / Graphic: Watchlist Internet

I opened a bank account: what now?

  • Contact the bank and block the account. Explain that you fell for a fraudulent job offer.
  • Report it to the police. This is very important because the criminals have stolen your identity and may be committing crimes in your name.
  • Search yourself regularly on the Internet. You may find a clue if the criminals take your name in vain. If this is the case, you can file a complaint Internet Ombudsman

Advice & Help
For specific advice requests, please contact the relevant offices that Watchlist Internet has listed for you Advice & Help

Source:

Watchlist Internet
This might also be of interest: Never give out a TAN over the phone
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )