The U.S. law enforcement agency the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) considers its Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, to be the United States’ central hub for reporting cybercrime. Information and advice on the site discuss many types of digital crimes, including fake job scams that can steal money or take over accounts from innocent, hopeful job hunters. The site provides background on this type of scam, and it explains that “Fake Job or Hiring Scams occur when criminal actors deceive victims into believing they have a job or a potential job. Criminals leverage their position as “employers” to persuade victims to provide them with personally identifiable information (PII) or to send them money.” The money disappears—along with the fake job—and PII may then be used to hijack financial accounts, withdraw money, open new accounts, run up fraudulent credit card charges or used for even more destructive identity theft.
What are some of the warning signs of a fake job scam?
The imposters running a fake job scam may be very experienced, smart and thorough, so the scam may very closely mimic the actions of an authentic recruiter and company. But job scams may have multiple and sometimes subtle signs that everything going on is not honest and legal. The FBI says that some indications of a possible job scam may include:
- Interviews are not conducted in-person or through a secured, encrypted video call.
- Interviews are conducted via teleconference applications that use email addresses instead of more trackable phone numbers that could be traced back to a company.
- Interviews are relatively fast and may involve only one person who asks a limited number of questions and makes quick hiring decisions.
- Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains (email addresses that do not include the company name as part of the address) and teleconference applications that are not well-known.
- The interviewer requires the job candidates to install a "teleconference application" on their computer; many of the well-known teleconference services offer websites that provide the service without the need to install much or any software. That "teleconference application" could be malware designed to infect and highjack your computer or cellphone.
- Company “recruiters” or “managers” do not have their profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to be aligned with their roles; the profiles look as if they may have been cut and pasted in from a different position.
- The recruiter states that they are not representing their employer but are working on behalf of a client and have authority to hire without disclosing the client's identity. Recruiters usually do not have hiring authority, only authority to find candidates and do their initial evaluation. At some point in the interview process, the recruiter should disclose the client company’s name and include a representative employed by the client company in a second interview, as interviewing for an anonymous company is uncommon and raises concerns.
- There may be an unneeded, abnormal urgency attached to the entire process, from the beginning interview to a job offer. Scammers try to rush the hiring process so candidates have little time to consider whether the situation is unusual and become suspicious." or split into two sentences: "Scammers try to rush the hiring process. This leaves candidates with little time to recognize unusual circumstances and grow suspicious.
- Fake employers may require employees to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars of their personal money to purchase start-up equipment from the company—such as a computer and printer—but may claim the employee will be reimbursed later. A legitimate company has the resources to invest in its employees and would not ask them to provide funds for equipment or temporary loans for any reason.
- A scam employer may require the new employee to pay for some activity, such as “processing,” “registration,” a “government-mandated background screening,” other hiring documentation or some other bogus reason. Honest employers invest in their employees and pay them money, and they do not ask or require a new employee to fund the company in any way.
- Scam employers request personal credit card information, which is not usual or customary information supplied by new employees to most companies.
- An employer may for confidential personal (PII) or financial account information for payroll purposes, and this is only after they have hired the employee.
- Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the company website, which may have generic language and images without specific details on the company and its activities.
- If the hiring company’s website never changes and does not have ongoing posting of press releases, news, updates or new features, this may indicate that the site is fake and being used by a cybercriminal.
How to protect yourself from fake job scams—what to do and what not to do
The FBI also has some ideas about not being victimized by a job scam:
- Conduct a thorough web search of the hiring company using the company name only. Search results that return multiple websites that direct the user to the same company (abccompany.com and abccompanyllc.com) may indicate fraudulent job listings.
- See if a company is legitimate through the free research services of the Better Business Bureau®. The BBB®’s mission is to be the leader in advancing marketplace trust, and it helps consumers find businesses and charities that they can trust. Check out the company with the Better Business Bureau®’s online BBB Scam TrackerSM tool to discover any suspicious activity about it.
- If a company needs sensitive personal information from you entered on a website—such as a Social Security Number or date of birth—make sure your personal information is being encrypted at websites, so look for secured website addresses. Reputable online merchants use encryption to transmit information from your browser to their computer servers hosting the website and enabling financial transactions. Look in your browser’s top address bar to make sure the website address begins with “https:” instead of “http:.” The s in https:// means that the website is encrypted with a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) that should protect your private information from being exposed to hackers. The site may also display visual confirmation of SSL with a very small icon of a locked padlock showing up on the left side of the website address. Be extremely cautious of entering information at any site that doesn’t indicate that all of your personal details are encrypted. Keep in mind that sophisticated, thorough scammers can also use https:// to give potential victims a false sense of security. Deciding to enter information on a website should not be based only upon the use of https:// but also on other research into the company and its reputation.
If you get victimized by a job scam, the FBI recommends these actions to assist in limiting personal damage, enhancing recovery and maybe preventing others from being harmed
If someone does become the victim of a hiring scam, the FBI recommends taking the following actions:
- Report the activity to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov or your local FBI field office; a list of local offices can be found online at www.fbi.gov/.
- Report the activity to the job board website where the job posting was listed.
- Report the activity to the company the cyber criminals impersonated if it’s a real company.
- If you’ve given up any PII or account information, contact your financial institutions immediately to check for any fraudulent or suspicious activity and direct them to stop or reverse any unauthorized transactions that show up.
- If money has been sent to the fraudster, ask the financial institution where the funds originated to contact the corresponding financial institution where the fraudulent or suspicious transfer was sent to attempt to recover the funds.
Increasing your knowledge of fake emails, false job listings and sketchy shopping sites could enhance your online safety—and Delta Community’s blog has free advice on these topics
More information on protecting accounts—and financial guidance—is available from free Delta Community Financial Education Center webinars on a range of money-related topics. You can visit the Financial Education Center's Events & Seminars page to register for its no-cost, on-demand webinars.
There are a range of Delta Community blog and security posts on managing online personal security:
