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Ottawa police are warning residents to be aware of the resurgence of a scam involving online offers of employment.

Police said the fraud begins with the offer of employment from a questionable source on the Internet. Sometimes the employment offer is received unsolicited through text messages to a cellphone or personal email addresses. In other cases, people posting résumés online are being offered random jobs by unfamiliar organizations or businesses.

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Those who respond to the offers are told that they have received the position and are sent payment from their “employer” by cheque, e-transfer or other means. They are instructed to deposit the payment into their bank account.

However, the payment is more than agreed upon and the new “employee” is asked to return the excess somewhere else. The transfer is usually requested in the form of prepaid gift cards or a direct deposit into a specified bank account.