Someone I met online asked me to open his online account

Question

Someone asked me to open his account in Resolute-Citizen bank online to transfer payment for the things that he ordered (e.g. mud pump, drilling pipe). He is currently in a Cyprus oil rig for a 3 month contract as a petroleum engineer. I am even the one who contacted the supplier to ask how much the drilling things cost because he said that connection in the Cyprus oil rig is really terrible. Is this legit or a scam? Will I get in trouble? I checked the transactions in his account and saw a recent credited amount of a million dollars for an ocean oilfield.

Answer 1

Someone asked me to open his account in Resolute-Citizen bank online

This is always a scam.

because he said that connection in Cyprus oil rig is really terrible.

If they have trouble making financial moves, they can have a relative do it for them; not a stranger.

I checked the transaction in his account and saw a recent credited amount for ocean oilfield and its a million dollar.

If they did have million dollars in their account they wouldn't let a stranger have the password to the account.

Will I get in trouble?

Maybe. You could be the victim, or you could be part of the money laundering process.

Now some of your real information is connected to this account.

Answer 2

I Googled Resolute-Citizen Bank. They do have a website, but it stinks to high heaven of being a scam. No list of bank officers, no addresses or phone numbers for any branches. They claim to be based in the US but are not listed in the FDIC database of US banks. This is not a real bank. They are probably setting you up for some sort of scam. It's not clear what the scam will be. Did you provide any of your own information when "setting up his account"? It could simply be identify theft, or something more complex, but there is no way of knowing. If you provided any of your own banking information you should get in touch with your bank right away. Have no further contact with these people.

Answer 3

There is no plausible reason that he needs you to facilitate this transaction for him, and his story is full of holes. For example:

...he said that connection in Cyprus oil rig is really terrible.

So, how is he contacting you? If he can contact you, he can contact his bank too (or, for that matter, someone in his company's office). The logical thing for him to do would be to contact someone in the central office and say "we need a mud pump, please order me one."

For that matter:

...to open his account in Resolute-Citizen bank online to transfer the payment of the things that he ordered

He has enough connectivity to place the order in the first place, but not to transfer the money?

...like mud pump, drilling pipe

That's not how companies requisition equipment like that - they use a purchase order (or other similar process). They don't have the petroleum engineer's online friend pay for it out of his personal account.

Think of it this way: what sane company would have what he described be the only way to requisition critical equipment?

In short, the setup to this is implausible. They are likely using you as a money mule.

As for next steps,

• Don't contact the person you've been communicating with. Don't respond to them if they contact you.
• File a police report. You haven't done anything illegal by simply opening the account and this could help protect you against any fallout.
• Look carefully through any information you provided him (including information you entered - or may have entered - into any web sites he directed you to). If you provided him banking information, passwords, Social Security number (or the equivalent for your country), etc., that information should be considered compromised. You may want to consider freezing your credit (or doing the equivalent in your country) depending on what information you provided to him. In the U.S. at least, you can file a fraud alert with the credit-reporting agencies. Change any passwords that may have been exposed to him.
• If you haven't run a virus scan on your computer (or other devices you used to click on links or visit web sites he provided) recently, I would recommend doing so now (in case the scammer used a link you clicked on to install spyware or something of that nature). If the scan does find spyware, you'll definitely want to treat a lot more information (bank credentials, etc.) as potentially compromised.
• You could get identity theft insurance if you're especially concerned about this possibility (e.g. if you unintentionally compromised significant information like your Social Security number), but this has a cost associated with it.

Answer 4

The website grammar and punctuation do NOT sound professional whatsoever. The registration number given belongs to another financial institution completely. The website itself is poorly designed. The whois for the website is extremely vague with no owner information at all much less contact information. It is not registered with NCIC yet claims to be in USA.

It's fraud all the way around the block.

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Here's an update.... I was able to do some digging. A number they provided on their website belonged to another financial institution (a real one). They weren't affiliated at all. I then dug some more, made some contacts with folks. Long story short, the website has ceased to exist. The website (along with a handful of others) were shut down for phishing.

It's definitely a scam. Its origination is Lithuania. Do not associate with this person any further. Put a flag on ALL your personal information.