Contributed by William Curry, member, Happen.
Job seekers are sought out by sophisticated international con artists. These con artists flock to the Internet and offer up one sophisticated hoax after another on unsuspecting job seekers.
Many of the hoaxes follow the format of offering a job to a job seeker. Take the time to carefully read them over. Look at the sentence construction, the spelling, grammar even the punctuation and capitalization. If they look unprofessional they probably are a hoax. If a job looks unprofessional this shows the job ad has been written by someone who doesn’t write English or by someone who hasn’t spent any time on it. A job seeking is more than likely attracted to the subject of the offer that they may not notice or object to the unprofessionalism of badly written sentences. Be aware that this is a clear indicator of a job ad hoax. Be discerning take care to notice that the job ad is written badly and is a hoax.
When reading the job ad look for any references to a foreign country, non-USA/Canada. This might be a foreign location address, contact address, telephone or email. This is another indicator that the job offer isn’t real. It’s done to make it difficult to check up on the con artists using such tactics. Also, the legal enforcement of hoaxes carried out internationally is more difficult and the perpetrators are more likely to be able to engage in them.
A sure way to tell that a job ad is a hoax is that is asks you to provide your bank account, credit card or other personal financial information. The only time you will give such information to your employer is after you have met them and you’ve received a job offer and accepted it. Such hoaxes may ask you to supply such information in a way that does not give rise to you waving too many red flags. It may ask for a bank name where you do business, or, if you have a credit card or not. In itself these questions may not alarm you but later a question about an account number which may seem innocent and the result is that you have divulged your personal financial information. These hoaxes are designed to get such information from you and to steal money or your identity from you. If you have done this wherever possible change these personal financial affairs as fast as you can.
Some things to do before replying to a job ad that seems to be a hoax:
1. Using the company name as a keyword search blogs here:
http://blogsearch.google.com/
You will find some discussion of the questionable company helpful.
2. If it’s a big scam you’ll find it here:
http://www.ftc.gov/moneymatters
Please, if you find one (1) questionable comment or alert about a company that you think is trying to engage you in a hoax, this is all you need to confirm your worst suspicions.
General disclaimer : The content presented here are views of the contributing author and not of Happen Inc. This article is for information purposes only.
