Job Scammers Are Getting Bold and Sophisticated
A job seeker I’ve been coaching was contacted by a company regarding a contract role. She received detailed information about the initial phone interview and she sent me the write-up to review. I told her it was a scam and that at some point during the conversation she'd be asked to provide her social security number. The primary clue was that the interview was only going to last “5 to 7 minutes.” I bounced over to LinkedIn to look up the company, but I couldn’t find a solitary soul attached to this ‘hiring company.” The job seeker went through with the interview anyway, just in case it was legit, and this was the conversation she had at exactly the 5-minute mark.
Interviewer: "Everything sounds great…we just need your social security number."
The job seeker: "She was right!"
Interviewer: "Excuse me?"
The job seeker: "This is a scam!"
A day or so later, the job seeker received another email from the scammer; it contained an agreement to be a contractor and it appeared to be a perfectly-crafted legal document. I’m really mad at this point. This job seeker is pouring her heart and soul into her job search, and here’s this slick-willy company preying on her. In an effort to triple-check everything and make sure I wasn’t overlooking something, I did a little research:
The company's website…it was rich with information and appeared completely legit. Slick-willy scammer clearly knows a good web site developer.
A general internet search for the company name…I found a company with the same name, which had gone out of business 4 years prior.
LinkedIn for any past or current employees…still no souls to be found.
Dun & Bradstreet…still nothing.
Google map search for each of the office locations listed on the company website. The company claimed offices in the UK, France, and Hong Kong so I went to the street views of each location and looked at the outside of the buildings…the location in the UK was a shopping mall!
These scammers are getting bold and sophisticated! Everything looks sooo legitimate—the job description is great and the pay is awesome—and you really want it to work out so you keep going down the interview path, only to get your heart broken and your identity stolen.
If you receive anything that seems too good to be true, it probably is. Do not accept anything on face value! Just do an internet deep dive to check out the company and interviewer. If you find nothing and/or it still feels creepy, you should RUN—not walk—to the nearest exit. Block the scammer’s email address and thank your lucky stars you dodged a bullet. You can also take a page out of my father-in-law’s phone-scammer play-book and keep an air horn within arm’s length of the phone. It’s been very effective, thus far.