MIAMI, July 8 (UPI) -- Scammers are preying on those seeking jobs or trying to cash in on the stock market in the wake of April's Deepwater Horizon oil spill, authorities said.
At least two publicly traded companies that say they were involved in oil-spill cleanup operations have promoted non-existent jobs, The Miami Herald reported Wednesday.
"Whenever there's an emergency situation like this, there are people who are going to try to make money,'' said Kathy Karshna, assistant director of Workforce EscaRosa, a state-overseen non-profit jobs agency.
Some people have paid for oil-spill cleanup job-training that proved worthless, the Herald reported.
"They have not provided us with work and have asked us to pay a fee of $450 to provide us with our (course certificates),'' said Misty Gill in a complaint to the Florida attorney general's office.
Gill had taken a course in hazardous-materials training, but then refused to pay the demanded fee.
Most oil spill cleanup training should not cost anything, Occupational Safety & Health Administration spokesman Jason Surbey said.
"Training for shoreline, boom laying, or skimming is being done by BP, or its contractors, and is free. The only training that is not being paid for by BP is the 40-hour HAZWOPER (Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard) training which is required of supervisors or boat captains," Surbey said.
The federal Securities Exchange Commission said it suspended trading of two publicly owned companies, but neither company has been charged with any wrongdoing.
ACT Clean Technologies of California prohibited from selling stock for 10 days at the end of May after it allegedly falsely said the British Petroleum Corp. was interested in an oil fluidizer technology licensed by ACT, the newspaper reported.
Green Energy Resources of San Antonio, Texas, said in May it had a contract to deliver oil-soaked wood chips to five southeastern U.S. power plants, the Herald said.
