4 Accused of Making Bogus Job Offers on the Internet

Postal authorities accused four Hollywood men Tuesday of sending 50 million phony job offers to Internet users across the country.

Targeting housewives, students, retirees and the disabled, the men instructed recipients to send them application fees ranging from $35 to $40 to qualify for jobs stuffing envelopes at home, authorities said.

“You can make between $2,500 and $4,500 a month depending on the amount of time you are willing to spend,” the e-mail message said.

It is not known how many people fell for the alleged scam.

One who did, postal inspectors said, was Kathie Coombs, a permanently disabled housewife from Maine.

“I pray your offer is sincere,” she wrote in a note attached to her check. “I am disabled. I need this $35 check and this job offer.”

Her prayer fell on deaf ears, according to an affidavit from U.S. Postal Inspector Camille A. Hammonds, who investigated the case.

Not only was the job offer bogus, Hammonds said, but the suspects forged the names of reputable Internet firms to cover their tracks.

Three suspects, Steve Shklovskiy, Vadim Vernick and Timur Safranskiy, were arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy and wire fraud. Shklovskiy was freed on $100,000 bond after a federal court hearing in L.A. Assistant U.S. Atty. Christopher D. Johnson said the fourth suspect, Yan Shtok, is expected to surrender today.

One corporate victim of the alleged scam--MTC, a computer service provider that uses the trade name BigBear.net--said it got more than 100,000 complaints from subscribers angry at receiving “spam,” Web slang for unsolicited e-mail messages sent in bulk.

Going by the business name of AHWA, later changed to MOHW, the four men forged BigBear.net’s name on the message’s header, the affidavit said.

Some clients who thought BigBear.net was responsible retaliated by sending continuous messages to the company, causing network crashes on several occasions.

Another Internet service provider whose name was forged, the affidavit said, was Mindspring.com, one of the world’s largest. Mindspring reported receiving at least 1,000 complaints a month, swamping its staff assigned to investigate abuses.

Scott Noteboom, MTC’s chief technology officer, said he began receiving complaints from customers in March. “These scams come and go all the time,” he said. “This one was different. It came and never went.”

The problem continued until recently, he said, with some BigBear.net subscribers receiving as many as 10 e-mails containing the same job offer.

“That may have been their undoing,” said Noteboom, who alerted the Postal Service and provided advice on Internet sleuthing. “It gave [Postal Inspector Hammonds] time to track them down.”

The Postal Service said the men also offered work-at-home deals under the names of HMC Co. and USA Home Employment with offices in Studio City, TYSS in Van Nuys and Ameriworld Publishing in Hollywood. The locations were mail drops.

Internet users who tried to contact the companies by e-mail had their messages returned as undeliverable, the affidavit said.