Today's post is an important public service announcement about an unfortunate trend that is becoming more common during the current economic recession---fake job advertisements.Our family became experts in the subject yesterday (hence no posting from me) after my husband received an e-mail announcing that his application for a position had been successful and requesting that he review the attached contract, as well as contact the company's travel agent to make flight arrangements (not unusual as my husband is a global commuter) to start work the beginning of September.
As you can imagine, we were very excited---it has been almost a year since my husband finished his last contract, just before the markets plunged and job hiring halted. We both reviewed the contract, and nothing particular stood out as being unusual, except perhaps that the benefits seemed very generous. Then again, they were in line with what one working at my husband's level would expect; overall, it was a very good job offer.
We had a couple minor questions that we needed addressed, though, so my husband sent an e-mail to the human resources coordinator. After a few hours passed without a reply, he then decided to give the agent a call. Here was our first clue that something might be amiss---my husband received a message that the number was temporarily not available. So he called the company's main number (the job offer came from a well-established bank) and was redirected to the HR department; my husband left a message on the director's voice mail.
Two more hours passed without an e-mail reply from the coordinator or a call back from the HR director, so my husband telephoned the latter and this time was put through to her directly. She explained that she had been fielding calls all day from other "successful candidates", that the coordinator who sent the e-mails never worked for the bank, that the job advertisement---placed in a popular and well-respected newspaper---was a fake.
Even though experience has taught our family not to become too excited about job offers until the ink is dry on the contract, I would be lying to say that we not very disappointed to learn the ad was a fake. Once the truth began to sink in, we started to question why would somebody do such a thing, what could be the benefit? A quick Internet search provided answers.
- Resumes can be sold to spammers. Therefore, it is important to use a separate e-mail account just for job applications; this way if your contact details are sold to spammers, the annoying phishy e-mails can be contained.
- Information can be gleaned from CVs and passed along to identity thieves. Do not include your address or social security number on any resumes, particularly those posted online. Only provide e-mail and phone numbers, if possible.
- Although in my husband's case we learned about the fraud before he contacted the travel agency listed, we suspect this agency might have asked for my husband's bank or credit card details (to reimburse him for flight and accommodation), which again, of course, would have been very useful to identity thieves.
Our family is above-average in the tech-savvy department; my husband has more than twenty years experience in IT. Yet, even we were fooled (and apparently many more IT professionals were as well, according to the bank's HR director) by this very credible job ad. In all likelihood, the description and contract text were simply copied from a legitimate job posting.
It is sad to think that people already dealing with job loss and the economic downturn have something else to worry about! Which is why I believed it was important to share our experience with you. Please pass along this information to everyone you know applying for jobs---one article I read said that incidence of fake job ads has increased 345% (!!!) in the past three years.
So be careful out there, folks!
*Photo from InformationWeek.
