Affluencia Consulting Reports & Reviews

Affluencia Consulting Reports & Reviews (1)

Scammer's phone (647)363-5784
Scammer's website www.affluencia-consulting.com
Scammer's address 10303 Jasper Ave, Edmonton AB T5J 3N6 Canada
Scammer's email [email protected]
Country Canada
Type of a scam Employment
Initial means of contact Email

I was contacted for a job that I did not apply for on August 30th, 2021. A manager at Affluencia Consulting Inc named Bui Huong asked me to complete a job application form and to reassure me that they were a legit business, the manager sent me a picture of her face with her driver's license. I searched for the company name on Google and saw their website with the location of their head office at 10303 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 3N6, Canada and their phone number +1 (780) 652-1156. I did a further search and got their business registration number, date of establishment and the name of the directors. To confirm the two directors and my manager exist, I searched them up on LinkedIn and saw that they were real individuals, but I did not see them listing Affluencia Consulting Inc as one of the workplaces. But I thought they might have not listed the business name because it was a new one, just opened in March 2021. With that much information, I was reassured enough to continue communicating with her. I asked if the interview could be done first, before the training, but she said their company had a call centre so she cannot receive any calls. I thought fine, just accept the job offer cause it sounded attractive enough to me. They sent me a 6-month contract to sign and asked for my proof of identification, which I provided them with a scanned image of my driver's license and the contract signed on each page. They then sent me an email to congratulate me on being employed and asked me to send them my bank information to set up payroll according to law. I sent them a void cheque. They specified that there would be a training period of 5 days, and I would get paid $50 per day for commission.

On the first training day, they sent me the instructions to complete the first training task involving depositing $3000 into my personal bank account, which they will send via e-transfers, then I had to travel to the nearest ATM to withdraw $2950 and keep the remaining $50 for salary. The last step was to go to a Bitcoin ATM to exchange the cash into Bitcoin and send it to a Bitcoin wallet by scanning a QR code that they sent me. Before beginning the task, however, they asked me again to provide proof of identification in the form of a video of me holding my driver's license next to my face. And again, to reassure me, the manager sent me a video of her holding a driver's license.

Anyway, I sent them the video out of naivety. Next, they told me that the operator would call for an interview, but it wasn't an ordinary interview, it was just another person explaining to me the task a second time, and she sure seemed to be rushing. The whole process of hiring me felt to be rushing. After the interview, the manager told me that my first training task was to exchange money, which they would e-transfer me, to bitcoin using my personal banking account, because according to her and what was stated in the contract, I was placed on a probationary period, and therefore cannot use a business bank account. They said the capital was for me to buy the hardware and software needed for the job. I waited for hours and they had not yet sent any money to my personal account. When asked, they replied that there was a new accountant at the company, so he was having some difficulties. I agreed to wait some more. However, the money never came. They asked me if I had another bank account because my primary one is known for processing e-transfers slowly. I provided them with my secondary email for interact e-transfer to my TD bank account. However, once more, the money never came. Now looking back, I think they must have stolen a bank account of someone and used it to try and send e-transfer to me, but the person probably realized problems with their bank account and either close or freeze it.

At that time, my doubts started to emerge, I looked further into their operation. I know Bitcoin could be used for many scams, so I wanted to verify that the address they wanted me to use the Bitcoin ATM is a real address at all. It was, but it also had a warning on the website about potential scams. I clicked on it, and to my disbelief, the description matched everything that happened to me.

All in all, I did not lose any money but I have accidentally provided the scammer with my personal information as stated on my driver's license, a video of me holding it, which I believe they will use for the next scam using the same tactic they performed on me, and my personal bank account information. I have saved the video of the fake manager with her driver's license and screenshotted the entire conversation I had with her on Telegram Messenger as proof. The lesson here is to NEVER trust any job offer too good to be true cause it is and never trust anything without properly researching the location of the scam company, red flags of a scam, and especially look up any information about the manager or company before accepting the job offer, especially online, I should have done more thorough research. I only knew about other people being scammed like me by looking up her phone number. I was lucky enough that the money never came through or I would be in very serious trouble cause I was naive and desperate enough to look past the warning signs until it was too late.