First there were fake news and bogus diplomas and now, there are also fake jobs. A recent report revealed that scammers are on the loose preying upon college students who are in need of part-time jobs.
Erin Dufner, the Chief Marketing Officer of Better Business Bureau based in Central Texas, said that a lot of fake job ads focused on scamming college students are being posted online. Most of these jobs look enticing and convenient because they are part-time in nature.
Dufner added that these fake job ads are placed in places which students think they can trust, such as student-run email servers and college employment websites that are legitimate. Moreover, they are posted at the same time legitimate job postings are posted which is in summer.
In 2016, there were 200 job scams reported in the state of Texas alone, Dufner said. During this time, $40,000 Texans lost money because of these scams while in the national level, people lost $10.8 million.
With these job scams mushrooming on the Internet, how can college students spot whether the job ad is legitimate or bogus?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued an advisory to help students and other job seekers to identify fake jobs. According to the web site, the most common characteristic of these bogus job ads is that they usually offer administrative positions. When the student accepts the job offer, they will wire a check to the students account with the instruction to wire part of that money to a company. This other company or person will reportedly give the materials for the job. When the student tries to withdraw money, the bank will identify the check as fraudulent and will eventually close the student's bank account.
Aside from asking money, these job ads usually have poor English grammar because most of them are done by non-native English speakers.
In order to protect yourself from being scammed, the FBI advised not to give any money when asked to do so. Moreover, the FBI encourages students to forward the email immediately to the school's IT personnel and report it to the FBI.
