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Dubai-headquartered international container terminal operator DP World has warned that criminals have been impersonating the company to con potential recruits in the US.

Scam artists have impersonated DP World and employees, conducting “job interviews” via text message, telephone, email and instant messaging systems such as Google Hangouts.

Potential employees are then hired by the scammers for work-at-home roles and provided with funds – in the form of fraudulent cheques or money transfers – to buy home-office equipment.

The scammers then instruct the ‘employees’ to deposit the money into their personal bank accounts and wire or cash transfer some to “vendors, who are actually the scammers”.

The company has no operations in the US bar a logistics park in Charlotte, North Carolina, and said it had no developments in the pipeline, contrary to what the con artists repeatedly tell victims.

DP World said it would never ask employees to buy their own office equipment or issue funds to them to do so, and neither would it interview potential recruits by email or instant messaging apps.

It added that there were a number of obvious signals to potential recruits that they are being set up for a scam.

“One of the red flags that distinguishes a false communication from a legitimate DP World communication is the poor grammatical use of the English language, which is apparent in conversations with the scammers.

“Another is the method of communication as DP World does not use commercially available e-mail providers, like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Microsoft Outlook. Further, false communications can also be identified by the tasks requested by the scammers.

“DP World does not request that its employees pay vendors personally, whether from their own funds or from funds provided by DP World. Likewise, DP World would never ask an employee to cash a cheque or money order and then make a deposit into a vendor’s account,” it said.

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