Just when it seems that consumers have caught on to one particular online scam or phishing expedition – think of the ubiquitous Nigerian prince email scam that first began making the rounds in the 1990s – a new one comes along. By now, the list seems endless: online dating scams, bank and credit card scams, fraudsters posing as charities, social media quizzes designed to collect personal information, and lottery scams. Now you can add to the list another one that’s significantly gained in popularity since the start of the pandemic: job recruitment fraud.
In this type of scam, fraudsters impersonate an employer’s recruiting, interviewing and employment team, create bogus job offers, and target job seekers by using fake websites or fake email addresses. They then post the fraudulent employment opportunities with the company they’re impersonating in order to obtain sensitive personal and financial information from the unsuspecting employment applicant.
Some fraudsters go so far as to impersonate a company’s former employees, communicate with and hold interviews with applicants, and even extend job offers on behalf of the company. Employers have even reported individuals showing up for their onboarding meetings when a job requisition has never been opened. Occasionally the scammers request payments as part of their fake recruitment process.
Like other online scams that seek to separate people from their personal information and money, job recruitment…
