The quick onboarding process sketched out Miner after the supposed recruiter told her that the company planned to send her a $3,500 certified check to spend with a specific vendor for her work supplies — a process that sounded strange. Instead of immediately ordering her supplies when the check arrived, as she was instructed, Miner waited to see if the check would clear with her bank before spending any of her own money. It didn’t, validating Miner’s fear: She was dealing with a scammer.
Luckily for Miner, who lives in Dallas, Ga., she hadn’t been able to reach her boss to resign — otherwise she could have ended up unemployed.
“How can I really be that dumb?” she remembers asking herself. “I was harder on myself than anything.”
Miner, who applied to openings on job sites such LinkedIn and Indeed and published posts about her job hunt, has company. Experts say scammers are targeting job seekers, a group that is growing as companies across industries continue laying people off, and they are especially going after those pursuing remote positions. Scammers are posting fake job openings on websites and are posing as recruiters in an…
