How to Watch Out For Job Scams

Scammers these days are very sophisticated and convincing. If you think all scammers are headquartered in dingy places and are composed mainly by poor and uneducated people, think again!

Many scams these days are operated like sophisticated legal businesses with plenty of capital and are staffed by educated and even rich people. One of the targets of scammers are job hunters, knowing that they are likely desperate to find jobs, making them vulnerable to scams.

Scammers can advertise jobs in the same way honest employers do: online thru ads, job sites, and social media, or in newspapers, and sometimes even on TV and radio. They offer you a fake job, in the hopes of stealing your money and personal information.

Here are some examples of jobs scams and how to avoid them.

1. Examples of Job Scams
1.1 Work From Home Job Scams
1.2 Check Scam
1.3 Mystery Shopper Scam
1.4 Job placement Scams
1.5 Government Job Scams
1.6 Trainee Job Scams

2. How to Avoid Job Scams
2.1 Check the Reputation of a Recruiter and/or Company
2.2 Ask Advice from Others
2.3 Don’t Pay for a Promise of a Job
2.4 Only Pay Once the Cheque Has Cleared
2.5 Always Insist on a Legally Written Contract
2.6 Avoid Unpaid Internships that Don’t Guarantee Full-Time Paid Employment

3. How to Find a Job
3.1 Don’t Do the “Machine Gun” Approach
3.2 Consider Jobs That Others Won’t Consider
3.3 Look For a Job Even During Downtimes
3.4 Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For a Job

4. What to Do if You’ve Been Scammed

Final Words

The Details:

1. Examples of Job Scams

There are many kinds of scams that scammers use. There is simply no way that they can all be identified, but here are the more common ones:

1.1 Work From Home Job Scams: Many people these days dream of leaving their office and factory jobs to work from home. Many are so enticed with the idea of working from home making them very gullible to scammers.

Many scammers would sell a vision where their victims would earn thousands, if not hundreds of thousands a month while comfortably working in their own homes. The work from home jobs that are usually promised are online jobs and/or sales, e-commerce, and so on.

Scammers usually hook their victims with promises that they can be their own bosses doing little to no work, having flexible schedules and selling high moving products. Victims are usually sold bogus starter kits, courses, certifications and useless business information.

Victims can also be fraudulently billed and their payment information stolen. Often, a victim’s personal information is sold or is used again to scam even the victim’s friends and loved ones.

Work from home jobs might also seem legitimate because you actually do real online jobs. You would only realize that it’s a scam later on when the online company doesn’t pay your due wages or commissions.

Also, beware of pyramid schemes masquerading as legitimate work from home jobs. Many pyramid schemes lure their victims into buying useless products by using people that they normally trust.

1.2 Check Scam: This scam especially targets jobseekers who are aspiring to be a caregiver, nanny, virtual assistant, gardener, house cleaner and other jobs that require little skills and educational background.

This is because scammers are targeting people with low educational backgrounds knowing they’re likely easy to scam. Also, jobs that require little skills and education are very enticing because there’s a low barrier to entry.

The scam usually works this way:
1. The alleged employer tells you you’re hired and then sends you an “advance payment cheque”.
2. They tell you to cash the cheque so you can pay yourself and send the rest of the money to someone else who would later turn out to be the scammers themselves.
3. The check eventually bounces and if you try to get your money back, you won’t be able to trace the contact information of your alleged employer because by this time, they would have disappeared without a trace.

1.3 Mystery Shopper Scam: In case you’re wondering, a mystery shopper job requires you to act as a shopper on a store that is being evaluated for its products, customer service, shopping experience, and so on. You are actually being paid to shop. This is the reason why many people are attracted to this job.

Scammers know this and are taking advantage of it. They would advertise mystery shopper jobs and sell unwitting victims certifications, directories of jobs, job guarantees, and so on. The first rule of job hunting is that if you are being asked to pay to get a job, it’s likely a scam.

Also, they’ll likely pull the check scam on you, making you deposit a bogus check while making you pay them first.

But to be fair, there are some legitimate mystery shopping jobs. It’s just that it is very hard to know which one is legitimate from the sea of fake mystery shopping jobs being advertised by scammers.

1.4 Job placement Scams: Staffing agencies, Temporary work agencies, Headhunters and other job placement companies are paid by companies to recruit workers for them. Usually, a company pays to advertise their job vacancy on these previously mentioned recruitment companies.

This means that you don’t have to pay these recruitment companies to have your resume and other job hunting related documents filed with them. Generally, if a recruitment agency asks you for money to find you a job, they’re generally a scam.

But there are also recruitment companies or agencies who work under the business model of being paid for finding a job applicant a job. Usually, you pay a one-time fee for their services. These jobs are also generally concentrated on managerial jobs where the stakes are high.

So, be careful of recruitment companies who ask for payment just to put you on their job applicant list, sell you courses and other certifications and services without giving you a guaranteed job.

1.5 Government Job Scams: Many job seekers aspire for government jobs, because they are one of the most secure jobs available with plenty of government subsidized benefits and perks.

Again, scammers know this already and advertise fake government jobs which are supposed to have plenty of benefits and perks. They even disguise themselves as legitimate government recruiters, complete with fake IDs and documents.

Usually, these scammers would ask money from their victims under the guise of giving them preferential treatment. Don’t fall for this. These scammers would likely extort as much money from you while continually promising you that you’ll eventually get the government job.

1.6 Trainee Job Scams: There are legally and illegally existing companies who advertise jobs where the job acceptance requirements is that you undergo an unpaid traineeship first.

For example, there would be dubious companies who would supposedly test first your sales skills by requiring you to sell a few of their products without getting paid. However, in the end, they never hire you even though you have successfully met their sales quota.

Another scam that some companies do is to make you work for them unpaid with the promise that if you successfully meet their probationary period, they would hire you and start paying you.

By most employment laws around the world, all probationary employees are supposed to become full-time employees after six months. But these scammer companies terminate your unpaid internship way before you reach the legally mandated limit to be hired full-time.

Back To Summary List

2. How to Avoid Job Scams

Here are a few ways to avoid job scams:

2.1 Check the Reputation of a Recruiter and/or Company: These days, there are many publicly available information about people, companies and other organizations online.

For example, by simply typing the Google Search keywords: “list of scam companies”, you would be provided by Google Search and other browsers listing of scam companies. You can even directly type the name of the company to ask for information as to whether it is a scam.

For example, simply typing the Google Search keywords: “Is [Name of Company] a scam”, would likely bring out direct information if the company you’re interested in is operating a scam.

Review sites like Glassdoor and TrustPilot also have information regarding how a company operates, like how it treats its employees and customers. Sites like Quora and Reddit are also invaluable resources of company information.

Though these and other sites might contain mostly favorable information about a company or an individual, take note that even one negative review or comment can indicate that the company or individual might be operating a scam.

2.2 Ask Advice from Others: Often, we get so blinded by enticing job offers that we are unable to think clearly, making us vulnerable to scammers and/or dubious employers. Often, we need the advice of someone who has a clearer head regarding the job being offered.

Often, your confidante will be able to point out something that you haven’t considered before, like a possible scam or a lopsided deal from your prospective employer. If possible, seek the advice of as many people that you trust as possible.

2.3 Don’t Pay for a Promise of a Job: Employers and Recruiters don’t ask job applicants to pay to get a job. Anyone who does is a scammer. Don’t also pay for courses, certifications and other so-called job requirements unless they’re government mandated.

If a recruiter guarantees that they’ll find you a job in exchange for your payment, only pay once you’ve actually landed the job they promised to you and not before.

2.4 Only Pay Once the Cheque Has Cleared: If ever your potential employer sends you a cheque as alleged advanced payment for your services, don’t hand out any money to other people involved with your new job unless the cheque has cleared first.

2.5 Always Insist on a Legally Written Contract: There are employers who would promise you anything just to be able to get your services, but afterwards, they don’t deliver on their promises, especially regarding salary, benefits and perks.

Make sure that before you accept a job, you are legally protected by a binding contract in case your employer don’t deliver on the promises they gave you.

There have even been cases where former employees where able to collect millions of dollars as compensation from dishonest employers.

2.6 Avoid Unpaid Internships that Don’t Guarantee Full-Time Paid Employment: Unless an internship guarantees full-time paid employment, don’t accept an internship offer. Dubious employers and scammers rely on the desperation of job hunters in finding a job.

This is the reason why they offer unpaid internships under the guise of work experience. Don’t fall for these dubious employers and scammers. There are honest companies who would pay you a decent salary even though you’re just a trainee.

Back To Summary List

3. How to Find a Job

Finding a job has never been easy except for the few lucky ones who happen to chance on a job that fits them, but there are some time tested approaches to finding a job easier and more effectively:

3.1 Don’t Do the “Machine Gun” Approach: There are job hunters who approach looking for a job like firing a machine gun. They randomly and without a plan apply to as many companies as they possibly can, hoping that one would eventually hire them.

What you should do instead is to make a list of the companies you want to apply to based on certain characteristics like your chances of being hired, the salary, the job tasks, and so on. Then concentrate your efforts to being hired by at least one of these companies on your list.

This increases your chance of being hired while not using a lot of your resources. You have to realize that when looking for a job, you spend a great deal of time and even a lot of money trying to find a job.

By having a concentrated list of target companies to apply to, you minimize the time and money that you spend looking for a job.

3.2 Consider Jobs That Others Won’t Consider: There are jobs that don’t get immediately filled out even though there is a huge demand for them. For example, there are a lot of people who don’t enjoy sales jobs because they don’t want to communicate with people.

However, a sales job can be very profitable and exciting as compared to a desk job which might pay less and may be boring. Yet, more people would rather apply for desk jobs rather than sales jobs.

3.3 Look For a Job Even During Downtimes: Many job hunters don’t look for jobs on a full-time basis. They think that employers only hire during the weekdays and only during working hours.

But there are a lot of employers who are so busy during work hours that the only time they have to look at resumes would be during the end of the day or during their holidays. For example, just because it’s Christmas it doesn’t mean that employers stop working.

So, never stop looking for jobs. There are plenty of jobs that get filled out during the evenings, weekends and holidays because these are precisely the time that some employers have a chance to talk to a prospective employee.

3.4 Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For a Job: A job can come from anywhere. There are plenty of job vacancies that are not advertised. Usually, it’s only through word of mouth that these job vacancies are ever known.

So, don’t be afraid to ask anyone you know if they maybe know of a job which might suit you. A friend of a friend of a friend and so on might know of a job vacancy somewhere that you can fill.

There is a saying which goes: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, and this applies to jobs. Most employers are willing to give a job to an unknown applicant which is recommended to them by someone they know and trust.

Back To Summary List

4. What to Do if You’ve Been Scammed

In the real world there’s not much that you can do if you got scammed. Even a lot of police organizations and payment processing companies like banks would tell you this, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try.

In rare instances, police organizations and payment processing companies do manage to reverse the scam that has been done to you which includes the money stolen from you as well as your personal information.

But most of all, don’t forget to report to the public the scam that has been done to you. Sometimes the media and even people sympathetic to you may be able to help you recover from the scam that has been done to you.

Also, by going public, you make other people aware of the scam which might prevent them from being scammed by the same scammers.

Back To Summary List

Final Words

The number of scammers is continually increasing. Far from being crude, many scammers these days run sophisticated operations which are similar to running legal businesses, complete with big working capitals and highly trained staff or scammers.

One of the favorite target of scammers are job hunters, knowing that they are more likely to be so desperate in finding a job that they’ll accept any job handed to them without taking a second look at it.

From work from home jobs scams, cheque scams, job placement scams, traineeship scams and so on, there are plenty of ways where a scammer can steal your money and personal information.

So, diligently research the employers and recruitment companies offering you a job, because if it seems to be so good, it probably is a scam. You have to be aware that scammers have infiltrated many facets of our lives, even our job hunting activities.

Back To Summary List

You Might Be Interested To Read This Article:

Fake It Till You Make It: Is It Really Alright to Do So?

There are people who fake it till they make it. We can use card players as an example. Let’s say a group of people are playing poker, would a person holding a bad deck of cards show in their face that they have a bad deck of cards?

Let’s also take the competitive world of boxing or mixed martial arts. Would a boxer or mixed martial artist signal to their opponent that they are hurting and is just about ready to be knocked out?

But these are good example of fake it till you make it. There are also bad examples like when you hide to your investors that your business which they invested in is losing money and you instead deceive them by telling them that your business is running well.

Even governments engage in fake it till you make it strategy. For example, many governments would tell their citizens that they are winning a war when it truth they are losing. This might be a gray area when it comes to ethics as government don’t want their citizens to lose faith in them.

Simply put, there are instances in life when it is permissible to fake it till you make it. The idea being that you are not causing harm to the people you are trying to convince: ...

Knowledge

Life, Career, Business, Finances...