Don’t Become a Victim of Fake Jobs Fraud :-
(I) Too Good to Be True:-
- Good jobs are always hard to find. Remember our grandparents used to say, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is a scam. Here are some tip-offs for “fake jobs”.
- You never contacted them; they contacted you: They say they found your resume on online job portals. They either offer you a job right away or say they want to interview you. Sometimes the scammers will try to persuade you by saying that you made the cut and they are interviewing the finalists for the job.
- You get the job right away
- After a quick phone or Instant Message interview, the ‘interviewer’ immediately contacts you to offer you the job.
- Unprofessional Emails
- i.e. Capitalisation errors: ‘Anil rachamalla should be ‘Anil Rachamalla, and ‘gmail should be ‘Gmail
- Punctuation errors: Commas and periods should be followed by a space
- Grammatical errors: “Human resources have reviewed” should be “Human Resources has reviewed”
- Emails Don’t Include Telephone Contact Information, If so they don’t have a board number with an extension.
- Online Interviews via Messaging Services
- Many attempted scams will take place online using an instant messaging service like.
- Some scam emails will look like they come from real companies.
- “The scammer’s email address was jobs@bankof-america.com The original company email is jobs@bankofamerica.com”
- Search Results Don’t Add Up
- Some scammers pretend to represent real companies. You may have received a job offer from ‘Bank in America, but the real company is named Bank of America’.
- You’re Asked to Provide Confidential Information
- Some scammers ask for personal information like, Aadhar. PAN and Passport copies under the disguise of Background Check, Ensure you send to legitimate email ID otherwise you are prone to phishing attacks in feature.
- They Want You to Pay for Something
- Legitimate companies don’t ask for money. If you’re told you need to purchase software or pay refundable deposit or Service fees, beware.
Few Modus Operandi :-
(I) Back Door Job Scam : It refers to a fraudulent scheme where individuals or organisations promise job placements or employment opportunities through unconventional or unauthorised means (seeking money in favour). These scams often exploit the desperation of job seekers by offering them supposed shortcuts to secure employment, but in reality, they are illegal, unethical, and potentially harmful. After the money is paid as a favour, most of the fraudulent company representatives just vanish into thin air.
(II) Corporate Impersonation : (Step 1) Candidate (Victim) receives a random call for a job offer. (Step 2)The scammer asks the candidate to pay for offering a job with better package. (Step 3) Candidate agrees to pay once she gets an fake offer letter which the victim is not aware. (Step 4). After sharing fake offer letter, scammer asked candidate to pay money via UPI else offer will be revoke. Most of the times victims tends to believe as the domain which scammers communicate is very similar to the original i.e.,instead of www.amazon.com they might put as www.amazan.com and Laos uses similar emails and names that are from the original company (Step 5) On the date of joining, candidate reached out to original company and got to know the actual scam.
(III) Challan Scam : (Step 1) You get an SMS saying “Your profile was forwarded to the legal department. You cannot apply to any MNC companies for the next 7 years. The court will provide legal notice and a challan, and you have to pay the challan in court with a statement to @naukri.com. Dear Candidate, your challan number is 885/8654/2023 QC (Case no. PD: 101), and the challan amount is 56,000/-. Pay in court within 2 hours, or an officer will visit your address at @naukri.com. (Step 2) People will fake experiences are mostly targeted; they get the background failed data and send such emails. With the fear of not getting a job in the future, they become almost ready to pay the amounts. (Step 3) The victim gets a call claiming to be the official agent of @naukri.com, and he requests half of the money paid to him to get the data deleted; hence, he doesn’t need to pay the court. In the desperate situation, most of the victims pay the fake agent.
(IV) Task based Work From Home : (Step 1) Victims are attracted towards social media advertisements and short links sent via WhatsApp and SMS on shopping/reselling on a fake shopping portal. (Step 2) Victims are asked to deposit anything between Rs 200 to Rs 10,000 following where they can “shop/resell”. Some companies may offer free amount already loaded on their wallets to get them enticed. (Step 3) Victims are asked to perform tasks (sell/buy) from the portal as part of their earning routine. (Step 4) The profit amounts are visible in the wallets, but the victims are unable to with draw (Step 5) Once the victim has made the first few profits, he is enticed to perform additional tasks that involve loading more money and performing more tasks, and he earns similar returns and those show up in the dashboard/wallet. (Step 6)The victim is unable to withdraw the money shown in the dashboard/wallet and is requested to load more money and perform more tasks in order to be able to withdraw his earnings, The process continues in a loop, and once a large amount is invested by the victim, the fraudster stops responding over the chat and the victim loses all earnings, including his actual investments as shown in the dashboard/wallet.
Sample Victim Profile:-
These are the type of people who are most likely to fall prey to fake job scams:
- Mostly from tier 2 or tier 3 cities, who come to tier 1 cities for jobs.
- Graduate from lesser known colleges or institutes
- Poor interpersonal communication skills
- 0-3 year work experience
- In their early to mid-20s
- Not good at written or spoken English
- Not very skilled at their jobs and low professional expertise
- Have applied only on job portal
Top Fake Job Scams:-
- Hyderabad: January 2019, one person was held for cheating 1.04 lakh applicants.
- Ghaziabad: June 2018, Three men were arrested from Kavi Nagar in Ghaziabad for cheating hundreds of job seekers over two years.
- Hyderabad: June 2018, Three men were held in Hyderabad 2 lakh each from 60 unemployed youth in three months.
How to Safeguard Yourself:-
- Don’t make personal and sensitive information visible on your social media profiles.
- Never part with money up front for background checks , admin or service fees.
- If invited to do a phone interview, make sure the interviewer phones you – (you may be at risk of a premium rate number scam).
- Don’t accept money for nothing, for ‘working from home’ scams.
- Don’t share any personal information until you’re sure it’s a genuine company.
- Always Verify the Job Offer and Verify Credentials
- Always Seek Advice and Report Scams if you find anything fishy.
