Satina Graham says she was excited to retire last year, but as prices started to rise in the shaky pandemic economy, she started looking for a job in January. “I went job searching online, of course,” says Graham. She says she found the perfect job for her – fully remote and great benefits. According to Graham, a few days after she was hired by a company called Icon PLC, she received a check close to $5,000 to buy home office items such as a computer and fax machine. She was then instructed to send money through the cash app Venmo to a third-party installer to set up her equipment. She says eventually her bank told her the check she received was fraudulent. “I felt lost, hurt … It was really unexpected,” says Graham.
As Turn to Tara found out, Graham’s story is not unique. The Better Business Bureau says employment scams involving fake check schemes were actually the second-most reported scam in the tri-state this past year. “With the start of the pandemic, they really spiked. I view it as particularly dangerous because they’re often victims of identity theft after the fact,” says Brian Bauer, of the BBB. “They’re usually in conjunction with the job, they’re giving them things like driver’s license information, bank account…
