BBB Warns Those Hunting Jobs This Summer
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Better Business Bureau, Connecticut has warned all who are looking forward to picking up jobs this summer to be ready for scams out to con them. This is the time when fraudsters train their eyes on desperate and casual job-hunters alike and operate scams that focus on them.
As Bureau President Paulette Hotton pointed out,
“We expect instances of online job search fraud will continue to grow in coming months because of the tight job market and rising unemployment. Unfortunately, this problem targets some of the most vulnerable people, those who are out of work.”
For the benefit of job seekers it has issued a list of seven tell-tale signs that should warn them of a scam:
1. Watch out for spelling and grammatical mistakes in advertisements and in official communication. They are the most commonly identifiable trait in a scam.
2. Perk up if a company asks you to wire them money through Western Union or Money Gram or alternatively ask you to cash their checks and send back a portion back to them. Both are well-traveled routes used by scam artists to con people and disappear.
3. Be suspicious if somebody offers you a job you never applied for. It is usually the calling card of a scam that is out to steal your identity. In such cases, the job offers are followed by an extensive questionnaire asking you to divulge such personal information as your social security and bank account numbers. The scam makes money by conducting false transactions using the stolen identities.
4. If you subscribe to services of online job sites, be prepared to receive emails that say your account there has got stuck with a problem. You are asked to click on a link inside the email to fix the problem. All a click, in such scam emails, does is to trigger the download of malicious programs that secretly make a note of your important personal information like credit card number or online banking access codes and pass them on to scammers. Don’t click on the links in scam emails.
5. Be warned if a company asks you to purchase things or send some money before giving you a job. The money might be claimed to be the fees to perform a background check or as administrative fees for processing your employment request. Don’t send them a dime!
6. Be skeptical of any offer presented to you as a get-rich-quick-while-sitting-at-home gig. They are just scams trying to take advantage of people looking to make money from home.
7. Also, be suspicious of offers that promise wages and benefits inordinately out of proportion to what the position should normally hold.
Last but not the least, do a search for the company name at the official BBB website and also a general search online. Most scams are found exposed online.
Source: Connecticut.BBB.org
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