Informative Tips about Employment Scams


Top 3 Employment Scam Indicators (Click to play FraudSense with Dorothy video)


Whether you’re a college student looking for a job with flexible work hours, a new graduate interested in entering the workforce fulltime, a stay-at-home parent with small children, a retiree or a disabled person wanting to stay active or a fulltime worker seeking a way to supplement your current income, there are scores of people searching for employment.  Since we live in an age of digital technology most job searches involve the Internet.  While legitimate employers post ads on the Internet, so do fraudsters.  Thus, it’s vitally important that job seekers are aware that employment scams exist and learn how to recognize them. 

Employment fraud is currently so prevalent that on January 28, 2017 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a Public Service Announcement alerting citizens about the overwhelming amount of college students being specifically targeted by this type of scam.  The 2015 Internet Crimes Report released by the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) indicates that 18,758 people were victimized that year.  I’m sure that number is actually much higher.  The FBI IC3 can only offer statistics for those who report incidents.  Most victims fail to report being tricked.   Those who did report incidents collectively lost $33,890,824.00.

Tips to help you recognize and avoid employment schemes:

  • If the prospective employer is the one who makes the initial contact without you ever applying specifically for the position, it could be a scam. Especially if they claim that you are a finalist and you haven’t gone through an interview.
  • It’s probably a scam if the employer asks you to pay certification fees, training fees or monies for any reason.
  • You should definitely perform due diligence and verify the validity of the employer if the position requires you to receive and ship items to a vendor or other parties.
  • Of course if you are having your wages placed into your account via direct deposit, at some point you must provide your bank account data.  However, if the job requires you to open a new bank account or use your existing account to receive and distribute financial transactions…your radar should go up.  More than likely it’s fraudulent.
  • Employers who ask for your personal identification information, credit card or other financial account data before you’ve had a proper interview and actually secured the position should be viewed as suspicious.  Again, perform your due diligence to insure that the employer is legitimate.
  • Look for grammatical errors in communications from would-be employers.  That’s often a red flag that something is amiss.
  • When the job sounds too-good-to-be-true, i.e. excellent wages, flexible hours, minimal effort and great benefits…something’s wrong.  It’s probably a scam.

Steps you should take if you are victimized:

  • Report internet crime incidents to the FBI IC3 at the following link:  www.IC3.gov
  • If you provided your Personal Identification Information (PII) to a fraudulent employer file an identity theft report with the Federal Trade Commission at the following link:  Report Identity Theft
  • You may also consider reporting the incident to your local law enforcement agency, especially if it appears that the fraudster is targeting victims in your specific geographic location.

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