One visitor to our Discussion Forum said she's applied to more than 100 jobs and most of them were scams. None of them were the typical work at home scams that have been around forever. Rather, they were for office manager, administrative assistant, and secretarial jobs.
I've been coming across more scams, too, and, it's getting harder to tell the legitimate job postings from the job scams. That's probably because the scammers are getting more sophisticated at taking advantage of job seekers.
What do you think? Are you finding more job scams? Have you been scammed? If so, I'm interesting in hearing about they types of scams you're finding and what happened to you, if you've been taken advantage of. You can join our discussion in the Forum, comment (below) or email me to share your story.
More: Job Scams | Work at Home Scams
I have gotten several of these “offers” most for IT companies as a Project Manager. While I am a project manager it is not in an IT field and if these companies supposedly “found my resume” on the internet then they would see that and not even bother.
Back in January one of these came in January from careers@usa-jobsite.net and their Sr. Recruiter: David Chapman. An internet search shows this to be a scam but yet I responded, declining the job offer and blasting his services. I went further, cc-ing the HR department at the Harris Company (a real corporation and very large one at that) that was the supposed employer for this position.
You can read about my response at: My Blog: Nobody Likes a Jerk
I am finding that some companies are advertising positions that don’t exist. I went for an interview the other day, only to find out that the position I was very interested in doesn’t exist within that company. I wasn’t the only one to tell the manager that the position keeps showing up on the job website. What a waste of time!
I got caught in one of those sports marketing scams you mentioned in your article Entry Level Job Scams when I graduated from college a long time ago. I guess things haven’t changed.
I don’t remember the particulars anymore. But when I realized it was a scam and refused to go on, I got left in some unfamiliar neighborhood on the outskirts of Indianapolis, which was about 50 miles from home.
And this was in the days before cell phones!
Besides the normal ‘work at home’ SPAM you get from your Email address being listed on your resume, there are 2 main types of ‘scams’ I keep seeing.
1. The ‘career consultants’ – they like your resume very much and want to represent you. In fact, they want you to subscribe to their services (which are expensive).
2. The recruiter/trainers – they say they have clients with positions that you are qualified for, however, not right this moment. By co-incidence they just happen to be holding some technical training sessions you might want to purchase.
Thanks everyone, these are really good additions to the list.
I would have to say that it’s really hard to determine. I get so many emails from sales individuals because I do have a sales background but I never reply because I’m no longer interested in sales.
What confuses me is WHY do they send these scams? What purpose does it serve?
I have come across a few of these as well. The one site that gets a lot of these fake job ads is Craigslist. I will get a reply email after applying for a position that tells me that I have to fill out a form on another page in order to prove that I am not spamming them. Usually the page is for some sort of MLM, work at home, a sales page, or something of that manner. I will them flag the offending ad.
I will also get the occasional insurance sales position offer, when I have not listed myself for such a position. There are also the work from home/telecommute “jobs” that require that you have a bank account handy.
Quite a few are the old bait and switch redone again.
My job search came to a halt temporarily in September after I was scammed THREE TIMES in that month. The first I as wered an ad on Craig’s List for an English Tutor for an “international model’s 15 year old daughter” who was u=supposedly coming the U.S. to study. Turned-out to be an attempt to have me launder a big money check!! The second I responded to a “recommendation” sent by Career Builder for a home-based “Publisher’s Assistant” with Morgan & Chase Publishers out of Philly. Turned out they were in Oregon – and…had gone bankrupt a year ago, but the site was still up, and they go me for $30.00 that I sent for the “list” of businesses to call. Third one was another Craig’s List ad for an article writer for a company that said it was moving to my city and needed a freelancer who could research and turn out quality 750 word articles on fast deadlines. The salary was 40K They sent me topics to choose from, I chose “Asbestos Testing” and told “Richard” I could produce it in two days. I researched and prosuced a fun, factual piece of 825wds. Emailed it back…Mailer Damon came back…”email account closed due to abuse”. I think I probably wrote somebody’s TERM paper. Scammed for words of all things!!