Saturday, May 21, 2011

Beware of online job scams


JobStreet.com has recently sent a job scam alert to its subscribers. These job scams are on the rise and targeting people who are looking for jobs overseas. According to JobStreet.com, "scammers are pretending to be from reputable Multinational Corporations such as Oil and Gas companies, and sending job seekers an email confirming how they have been accepted for an interview overseas".

"This would of course cost money to the jobseeker (air tickets, lodging, food etc.) but the letter states that the company is willing to 'sponsor' 100% of the jobseekers' expenses. The catch? Jobseekers will have to pay a 'refundable' deposit of USD$100 upwards. Needless to say once that fee has been paid, the victim realizes that no flights or lodgings have been reserved and that the interview offer is false."
Source: JobStreet.com
It is not a rocket science to detect a job scam. If they want money from you in any stage, it is a scam! It is that simple. It does not matter how professional or "real" they look. They may even have a professional looking web site. But it does not mean so much since it is not hard or expensive to create a professional looking web site.

Always check a company name and or web site in google with the keyword scams. This even holds for big names. Because you may be contacted by a scammer who is pretending to be from a big company. Since these scammers send mail in bulk by just changing the name section, a simple google search like " scam" or " scam" will most probably show you it is scam or not.

Do not forget. If they require money from you in advance, it is a scam:

"You should be careful of job advertisements that:
  1. Ask you to pay money before processing your application or training you;
  2. Invite you to interviews that turn out to be multi-level marketing or pyramid selling schemes;
  3. Misuse your resume information to sell you products (such as insurance, etc) or make offers not connected to the job advertised;
  4. Are generally untrue, dubious or misleading (e.g. misleading job title, job description or company description); or
  5. Use web-based public email addresses instead of company-owned email addresses."



Here you can find some examples of scams http://careers.jobstreet.com.my/community-digest/job-scam-alert.

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