Midland, MI - May 18, 2009
A series of fraudulent classified advertisements under the name of The Dow Chemical Company appeared in newspapers and on job seeking websites between the dates of April 19-May 1, 2009. This is a commonly known hoax and may be referred to as an advance fee fraud or the 419 fraud.
The fraudulent job postings claimed to be for accounts receivable positions. Dow Workforce Planning has confirmed that these job postings were not authorized by Dow. The postings have appeared in The Saint Petersburg Times, The Herald, The Hubbard Press, The Allied News, The Dallas Morning News and various job-posting websites. The ads were picked up from the job websites and distributed to other sites via job search engines such as Indeed.com.
Applicants, and job seekers using Monster.com, approached Dow with complaints of suspicious e-mails stating they had received a job offer and they needed to provide banking information or an address where counterfeit payment could be sent. "To the best of our knowledge, none of the job seekers or applicants provided personal information to the parties responsible for the hoax, stated Kim Wood, manager of Investigations, Dow Fraud Investigative Services. "Fortunately, people contacted Dow's Workforce Planning department to inquire about the validity of the job offers and were able to avoid a bad situation."
Dow's Fraud Investigative Services department has alerted the appropriate U.S. governmental authorities.
About Dow
For Editorial Information:
Nia Seals
The Dow Chemical Company
989-636-2378
