Finding a job can be harder and because of the desperateness of job seekers, scammers do their job well in enticing people.
Hoping to find better opportunities some people end up losing their hard earned money and become a victim of “Identity Theft”.
Where the scammers can do anything with your identity, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. We will go through every step to determine a job scam.
Nowadays, people are becoming smarter and so are scammers. Sometimes, it’s very hard to find whether the job is a legitimate or a fake one.
But it can be easy if you follow the steps from this post and do some research on your own.
Whatever the way will be, these bogus agencies or people would like to get your money or your identity and after being successful maybe you can’t see or contact them later.
Irrespective of their modus operandi, these agencies have the same motto to promise the candidate, get your confidential data and to get their hands on your cash.
But does this mean you cannot find a genuine job or an internship?
Obviously, You Can!
Let’s have a look at some famous Job Scams!
Job Portal or Job Site Scam
Scammers know that hunting a job is very difficult and it becomes very easy for them to pretend like a potential employer and brag about the offer.
If you take the example of India and the Philippines, 10 recent graduates 4 of them wanted to go overseas for their career. And most of the scams happen in getting an overseas job.
You’ve submitted your CV on a Job Portal and very soon an employer comes up saying, he/she is interested in your profile and wanted to offer you a position. But where is the catch?
They haven’t invited you to an interview and I have seen a company(fake employer) email saying that first, you have to give an interview and then you pay for the security money, thereafter you will have the interview with the company again and you have to pay for the visa.
How does the employer know that you’ll clear all these stages? I just wonder. They will promise to refund the money back but to be honest, it never happens, once you are parted with your money then it’s gone.
If you have to pay any amount to anyone before you get the job or after an interview then there is a red flag, beware it’s probably a scam.
No employer wanted to get money from their perspective candidates and no legit job will ask you to pay money. Give some time in doing a search for the Job portal and find if it is legit or a fake.
Email Scams( Jobs being Offered with Unprofessional Email:
“Hi, Aditya we have found your CV on XYZ.com and we are glad to offer you a position in our company as a …”
Wow, without applying for a job, even without giving an interview, you have been offered a position. What else do you want?
The person who has sent you an email may be is from your dream company. But, stop>>>
Have you tried to read that email address? Is it a Gmail or a Yahoo or any of the free email account?
Do you know every business organization has its personal email address with the same domain name as the company has? If you don’t know about a domain name, let me just give you a short introduction.
If the company name is Marriott and if you google about Marriott, then you can find the hotel website which is Marriott.com (this is domain name) and the people who are from the hotel they will have an email address associated with the domain name.
Just for an example, Mr. Manoj Shah is a Human Resources Executive (just, for example, no reality) then his email address might be like,
Or any other combination but the domain name (Marriott.com) will be the same.
Let me show you a real example of Email Scam:
One of my friend’s recently got an email from Ritz Carlton Canada (Yeah definitely that’s not the Ritz Carlton) claiming that he has been selected for a position of Sales Manager, just after his grad, with no prior experience in sales.
If you will go through this bogus job offer then you will understand how the scammer is touching your weak point.
First, you always wanted to go abroad, second, a good salary, incentives and bonuses, third work-life balance and they are giving you the same, to dream( Yes I’m right, a dream).
But, if you carefully read all of the above you will start finding it unrealistic, with tons of grammatical errors, promises, and more promises and if the job offer is too promising then it’s probably a scam.
And if you have understood the domain name then you will find it easy to catch that the email has been sent through a Gmail account and they have mentioned Ritz Carlton International Hotel, but Ritz Carlton is a luxury brand of Marriott (which they haven’t mentioned).
The offer letter looks too much crafty and as per my knowledge, I have never seen writing a contract on a yellow or coloured paper. Normally, its just the A4 sized white printed paper.
Facebook Job Scam:
Being one of the best social networking platforms, Facebook has too many scammers who are ripping innocent and desperate job seekers.
I am not going to talk about Angel Priya (Even Zuckerberg was amazed that why didn’t he met any Angel Priya on his visit to India).
There are hundreds of thousands of groups and pages about career, claiming local and international career opportunities.
But they are just a waste of time and I think the person who has been interested in these pages must have a lot of free time and maybe he/she is not serious about their career.
Example of a Facebook scam:
Work From Home Job Scams:
Needless to say one the best and easiest way to scam people is by providing alluring work home opportunities and to be honest I was once about to get scammed when I was a teenager.
You can still find some genuine Work at Home Opportunities if you have some skills like Writing, designing, web developing or any else.
But never ever believe you are going to earn money by sending SMS, E-mails and copy-pasting. Don’t fall for their fake offers.
LinkedIn Scams:
If you’re a regular LinkedIn user then you might have seen posts like I am creating a Hotel Professionals WhatsApp Group, comment your phone number or email address…
For someone, it might not be a scam, but for me, it’s a scam. How can you imagine that a group of random people is going to help you?
I am not saying this because I don’t want to build networks, Yes I definitely wanted that but, I have experienced being in a WhatsApp group of so-called professionals, where messages never stop coming and everyone is busy demanding a new opportunity for themselves and after some point of time funny messages will start showering and from professional it will become friends group. So I would never recommend being in such a time waster thing.
Before wrapping it up let’s check the main points:
- Never share too much information about yourself and never ever disclose your debit or credit card info.
- If the email id is unprofessional then, there’s a question. Why? And you should try finding the answer.
- Never pay any amount in order to get an interview.
- If in a case of a multi-national company, which is supposedly hiring through agents then directly ask the company it is genuine or not.
- Try to follow the company’s official pages on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter instead of following a lot of the fake groups. They might post a real vacancy but in the groups, the chances are 0.1%.
- Never ever send your original documents to any of the company. If they wanted to check they will schedule a meeting.
- If the website looks new, search about its reviews by adding scam to the company’s name like “Lucky Media Scam”.
Last but least, research about the company as much as you can do in order to not become a victim.
Tell us about your experience in the comments below. If you or your friends have been through this situation, then let us know. Should you have any questions or please drop me a comment below.