April 30, 2009
No, M/Y Princess Mariana is not hiring right now, and even if it were, the captain would not e-mail a job offer to anyone he hasn’t interviewed.
And to be sure, no captain would ask any job candidate to send money to boat, not for an airline ticket, processing a visa or any other reason.
Yacht jobs just aren’t filled that way.
“No crew member will ever be asked to send money to a boat,” said Capt. Mike O’Neill of M/Y Princess Mariana. “No matter who is offering what, you shouldn’t send money to anybody.”
But with the economic downturn creating a global pool of people eagerly looking for work, an e-mail scam designed to separate people from their money has hit the yachting industry.
Over the past few months, people looking for jobs on yachts have been hit with illegitimate job offers that seek detailed personal information in exchange for promises of good salaries on luxury yachts. Since early February, those e-mails come with the enticing name of the 252-foot M/Y Princess Mariana.
Hit hard have been people posting their availability in online job forums, including The Triton’s classified listings.
And some have fallen for it.
One young woman from the Bahamas sent $2,000 to the senders of the Princess Mariana scam, according to Kristen Cavallini-Soothill, director of American Yacht Institute in Ft. Lauderdale. Cavallini-Soothill helped the woman find another job and has been urging other crew not to be deceived by the scam.
“Don’t send money to anybody,” Cavallini-Soothill said. “No one in yachting would ever charge you to get a job, certainly not the boat or the agencies. And don’t send your personal numbers out, your passport numbers or B1/B2 visa numbers. Identity theft is alive and well, and it’s hit the yachting industry.”
Several captains who have received these e-mails enumerated what they called obvious signs of deceit.
1. The grammar, punctuation and spelling are atrocious. Words are often in the wrong tense and haphazardly capitalized, and sentences are often not complete. If it’s hard to read and doesn’t make sense, be wary as it was likely translated from another language.
“They claim they are in England, but their English is not very good,” Capt. O’Neill said.
2. They begin with an introduction of someone by name and age, similar in form to the infamous e-mails from Nigeria offering millions of dollars in exchange for a few hundred.
“Why would I need to know the age of someone providing a job introduction?” Capt. Ned Stone said.
3. They include minimal information about the job itself and a lot of information on how to fill out forms and who to contact for wire transfers.
4. They reference generous salaries payable in three-week schedules. Yacht pay is normally referenced in months. A typical monthly salary for an entry-level yacht stew or deckhand ranges from $1,500 to $2,500. The e-mail circulating by a purported “representative of Princess Mariana” offers 5,800 British pounds every three weeks.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it is,” Capt. O’Neill said. “I wanted to apply. That’s better than I get.”
5. They include a dubious return e-mail address. Legitimate placement agents or yacht representatives will have e-mail addresses that usually include the name of the yacht or crew agency. Many of the scam e-mails have come from an “@live.com” e-mail address.
All of those signs appear in the most recent e-mails to make the rounds. One appears here exactly as it was e-mailed to crew:
Capt Mcgils Owens (with mcgils@live.com ) wrote:
My name is Capt. McGill Owens, 38 Years Old from United Kingdom. I work with PRINCESS MARIANA - Luxury Motor Yacht in United Kingdom.We are seeking applicants to work on the new year-round UNITED KINGDOM flagged Passenger ship. Its a private own yacht,The monthly salary will be 2,500 sterling pound every three weeks, accommodation will be provided by the company. Hope to hear from you soonest Best Regards
Capt. McGill Owens
Capt. O’Neill isn’t sure why Princess Mariana has been named in these e-mails. Perhaps the scammers thought they would have success because the name is similar to Princess Cruise Lines. Or perhaps it was just random. The yacht, like many others, is for sale, so its name and image appears all over the Internet and in magazine advertising. The architect of the scam may have simply thought that a yacht of that size, like a cruise ship, can’t keep track of all its crew.
“The name changes and the e-mails are different, but it’s the same scam,” Capt. O’Neill said after seeing several similar e-mails. “I replied to one with a very stern e-mail saying we were tracking them and getting our lawyers involved. I never heard back from them, and it seems to have quieted down a bit.”
The e-mails mentioning Princess Mariana may have slowed, but the scammers are resolute. A captain received this e-mail a few days later:
Subject: About story #8178 on The Triton Classifieds
Capt Williams Edinburgh (with capt.will.edin@live.com ) wrote:
Dear Sir,My name is Capt Williams Edinburgh, 55 Years Old from United Kingdom. I am the CEO of Edinburgh Yacht Club in United Kingdom. I came across your profile on and decided to mail to ask if you\'ll be interested in the job.
Its a private own yacht, and the destination is always from Essex London to Ireland and Norway. The monthly salary will be 3, 200 sterling pound every three weeks, accommodation will be provided by the company.
Application post neededCaptainSkipperEngineerSteward/StewardnessChefCookCrew
Hope to hear from you soonest.
Best RegardsCapt. Williams
“Be very careful,” advised Stacy Geddis, owner of Crew4Crew.net, an online yacht crew placement agency. “If anyone has any questions, call the company they got the inquiry from. At the very least, Google the company and see if they are legit. Call someone in the industry if you have any questions at all. They can always call us to see if it sounds fishy. I do not want anyone to get duped by this.”
Capt. John Wampler researched a scam e-mail he received a few months ago and traced the scam, in part, to Nigeria. His letter about the scam was published in the December issue of The Triton (page A27).
Since then, the tactics have changed a bit, the letter has gotten a bit more savvy and much more prevalent. Reports have come in from the airline industry, the commercial marine industry and the domestic home care industry (nannies, particularly) that the e-mails have hit them, too.
“Have you ever been unemployed?’ asked Ian Pelham, director of The Crew Network, the crew placement arm of Fraser Yachts. “It’s frightening. I don’t care if you are a Y1 engineer with lots of sea time, when you are told your services are no longer needed, you are insulted and a little afraid. And the longer it takes to find a job, if you have to wait even 24 hours, you’re fearful. If you have a family and responsibilities, it can grow very quickly. Somebody who’s unemployed can make bad decisions, decisions they wouldn’t have made otherwise.”
Internet chat rooms are full of crew warning each other about the e-mails, but many job seekers are outside of the industry.
“This is what worries me,” Capt. O’Neill said. “People who read your newspaper are generally already in the industry; they know better. It’s the people living in South Africa or Australia who say wouldn’t it be cool to get a job on a yacht.
“I got a call on the Sat phone from a girl who said she was joining the boat and wanted to talk to Capt. Tom Cruise,” he said. “That should have raised some flags right there.”
The woman spent hundreds of rand (South African money) to make phone calls to track down his number, he said, but they were cut off before Capt. O’Neill could find out more about her.
Since then, he’s felt a need to do something to either stop the e-mails or educate people not to fall for them.
He’s created a web site called www.crewadvice.net that includes a list of legitimate placement agencies and schools, information on yacht jobs, and helpful links. He plans to expand it to include tips for new crew members on what to expect in their first job, what to bring to the boat and what not to bring, and things like that.
“That’s really the only thing we can do,” he said. “Crew really have no representation, no place to turn to to ask about these things.”
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