Scams on Job Search Websites: Attention!

The job search has never been an easy process. Nevertheless, together with social media, we have much more opportunities to make this challenge a lot easier. Besides, the Internet has opened various job search options none of us could think of before, such as resume and LinkedIn services, cover letter writing, etc.

No wonder millions of Internet users prefer LinkedIn or Indeed to daily newspaper job advertisements. But here’s a thing: no one could be 100% sure whether he comes across real employers or online scammers.

Real Fraud Story

Sara Wade from St. Louis, MO, has lived through a very unpleasant experience with one of the so-called employers she had found on LinkedIn. She informed ABC News that she had been using LinkedIn to search for a suitable job vacancy. After a while, she finally came across a “reputable” company. After sending her resume, she got a fake check for $2,400.

As stated by experts, this is a typical way for scams to get money from their victims: first, they send a fake check with instructions on how to send the money back. Calling this a “one-time fee”, frauds instruct victims to send them gift cards or make wire transfers. Sara couldn’t expect that she would get scammed on LinkedIn. She had a feeling that something was off. This is why she decided to call the bank and process the check. That’s how she learned that it was fake. Thankfully, by that time she hadn’t made a deposit yet.

Fighting Against Scams

The Federal Trade Commission admits these scams to be a great problem. The FTC representative Rhonda Perkins says that as technology develops, the ways people can get scammed develop as well.

A very similar case happened to Karen Kettering, whose fraud was working on the website Indeed. She wanted to receive a deposit from a fake employer and ultimately lost almost $2,000 as soon as the check bounced. During the interview with local ABC’s Chicago station, she couldn’t hide her shock from being deceived in a very unexpected manner.

One of the easiest ways to avoid scams is to ask for an actual interview. The other option is a phone or a skype meeting. However, it requires you to be aware of what not to say during a phone interview.

Luckily, as was stated by ABC News, Indeed has already started its work against scams. The statement says: “Preventing scams among job search results, eliminating predatory offers and misleading listings are currently one of the Indeed foreground missions. Therefore, we have created a whole team of professionals, who help to identify scams among our job listings. What we do is make a review of each ad posted by employers. Postings that seem to be questioned by our techniques are held invisible before the website makes its final decision”.

Smart Way to Look for a Job

Of course, Indeed is not the only one to take serious measures against fraud. As stated by LinkedIn to ABC News, the website created its own technical software to protect users from job scams. “More than 6 million job postings are there on LinkedIn at the moment. Approximately the same amount of people register on LinkedIn to find new job opportunities. It is essential to understand that LinkedIn provides countless opportunities for job seekers.

Creators of the resource do everything possible to make sure scams will not take over the website since it’s considered to be a reputable job-oriented social platform all over the world. Luckily, at the moment, there is hardly 1 percent of fraudulent jobs on LinkedIn. The fraud detection software is constantly improving to process job postings even faster. Considering Sara’s case, she got extremely unlucky to come upon a rare LinkedIn scam, but all the necessary actions have been already taken against it.