Beware of fake job offers, internet scam
Date: January 26, 2006Source: Computer Crime Research Center
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The exposure of 419 Scam did send a warning message to all the internet surfers but people continue to become prey of this trap. With the passage of time the Info tech is getting advanced and equally shrewd who come up with different schemes and programming offering lucrative incentives to innocent net users. Scammers have now launched a new fraud on internet by offering jobs in oil and other companies with very attractive salaries ranging from US$ 45,000 to 95,000 with many other perks and priviledges like quality single or family housing accommodation, free medical care and insurance for entire family, excellent educational assistance benefits for all dependents, airfares with holiday travel, and excess baggage allowances, paid vacation, official vehicle, and many more gimmicks like these. Scammers mostly target the Asian countries including Pakistan as the unemployment ratio is rather very high in these states and majority are living below the poverty line. The lower middle class wants to make progress overnight and hence they are always ready to take the financial risk involved in the offers of the scammers.
There are different types of scams, some of them offer a guaranteed employment within a fixed time period against the deposit of a fee. What all these companies do is that these just distribute candidates Resume to prospective employers, this is also known as CV or Resume “Blasting”. You pay money to have your details sent to worldwide employers who are hiring, but what the fraudsters do is that they SPAM hundreds or thousands of employers, industry websites and online magazines with your details. Some recruiting companies offer a money back guarantee as an incentive to use them but very few job seekers ever receive a refund.
Some time scammers advertise a job on the behalf of a real company. A bogus telephone or by email interview may take place and after some time you are informed that you are selected for that job. Now you need to secure the job they ask you to send money for your work visa or travel costs to the agent or a bogus travel agent who works on their behalf no matter what the variation, they always involve the job seeker sending them or their agent money, credit card or bank account details.
How to avoid these types of scams never give your personal bank account, PayPal account, or credit card numbers, never forward, transfer, or "wire" money to an employer.
Remember that a genuine employer or agency will not ask for money for visa processing or travel costs. One may be required to provide your own airfares, but you should do so through a travel agent in your area and which you know and trust. All the scams start by receiving e-mail or answering a job advertisement by e-mail. Fraudsters use free e-mail or web mail accounts such as hotmail, yahoo, mail, excite etc But a genuine employers and agencies never use a free e-mail service they all use their own domain name. To check a genuine e-mail address or domain name by extracting the text after the “@” sign, add “www.” as a prefix and test the address in your browser. If genuine it should show the web site of the company the person is supposed to belong to. Check for telephone and fax numbers and contact the company directly to ensure the person actually works for them. Always ask for phone, fax and office address details of the agency. You can easily check out through international directory enquiries or the local chamber of commerce websites.
In the history of internet frauds most famous frauds are Auction Fraud , Auction Fraud - Romania , Counterfeit Cashier's Check, Credit Card Fraud, Debt Elimination, DHL/UPS, Employment/Business Opportunities, Escrow Services Fraud, Identity Theft, Internet Extortion, Investment Fraud, Lotteries, Nigerian Letter or "419", Phishing/Spoofing, Ponzi/Pyramid, Reshipping, Spam, Third Party Receiver of Funds. For latest information’s on these internet frauds check these websites http://www.419legal.org, www.fraud.org, www.ifccfbi.gov, http://www.data-wales.co.uk/ni_fake_jobs.htm, www.data-wales.co.uk. The World Privacy Forum issued a detail report on online job scams which can be found at http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/jobscamreportpt1.html
To avoid such kind of fraud there is need for awareness and information campaign on part of the government. There should be an official website of the government containing information, details, updates of new trends, tips and tricks regarding online scams and safety measures as to how the people protect themselves from these Info tech frauds.
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