Job scams have been on the internet for years, but their numbers have skyrocketed and victims increased during the economic downturn and high unemployment rate.
The number of scams recorded soared at the beginning of the financial meltdown in the fall of 208 – when the number of scams more than tripled from the year before.
So-called money mule schemes represent the majority of the scams. By the end of 2009, Dutch risk management firm E-Secure-IT identified 626 money mule scams, an increase from the 406 detected in 2008.
In those ploys, victims often become unwitting accomplices to international crime by wiring money stolen mostly through computer exploits to scammers overseas. More than just losing their private information and their own assets, victims are often left facing criminal charges. People are charged with fraud and theft even if they didn’t know what they were doing. Authorities only know that you deposited a check and it looks like it was all you.
How scams work
Online job scams can come in the form of work-at-home schemes, false offers with the logo and product description of a legitimate employer slapped in the body of an e-mail, or fake company Web sites with professional graphics, stock images of smiling executives and even press releases and legal disclaimers.
Fake company Web sites can often be recognized because of their spotty grammar or disproportional compensations for easy tasks. But in some cases, scammers have taken the entire design of legitimate organizations, using Web domains with variations of the original company’s name.
In others, scammers will imitate a small or medium-size business with a solid reputation and an Internet trail that job seekers doing research can find to assuage any concerns.
Criminals “know people will do research and actually want them to find something,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum.
Educating the public
Researchers, law enforcers and advocates alike seem to agree that educating the public to recognize these scams is essential.
Some red flags to look out for are e-mail addresses from free e-mail providers like Gmail or Hotmail instead of a corporate domain contact, requests for up-front fees or scans of driver’s licenses and passports, or offers that do not match the job seeker’s skills.
Also, if a company tells you it’s 100 percent legal, it’s probably not.
