Job Scams
As of 9 February 2022, the South African unemployment rate was at 46.6% among adults and 66.5% among youth. Unemployment in our country is directly correlated to crime as desperate job seekers turn to alternative options to feed their families.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a lot of pressure on businesses that could not operate at full capacity. Many restaurants and small businesses closed while many big companies had no option but to downsize by retrenching staff and moving their operations into smaller premises.
As if this is not already difficult for unemployed job seekers, scammers have started to target those applying for work – taking what little cash they have.
These scams are very simple to run and can be very convincing. This is how it works.
The job seeker will receive an email, SMS or WhatsApp stating that there is a position open at a well-known company and all they need to do is follow the link and fill their personal details into the online application form.
The link will take them to a website that looks like a real business website but is in fact a phishing site (a website pretending to represent a legitimate business, designed to steal personal information, login details and more.). Scammers are very clever and they can reproduce the entire look and feel of the real website.
RED FLAG 1: How did this company know you are looking for a job? Why would they contact you specifically?
RED FLAG 2: There will be some sense of urgency included in the communication. For example “We need ten people to start tomorrow and we already have eight who have signed up.”
The job seeker will click on the link and be redirected to the phishing website. He will think that he is on a legitimate website. All the information that he adds to the application form will be stolen by the scammer. They can sell personal information on the dark web to other scammers especially identification and bank account details.
About a day later, the victim will receive a congratulatory email stating that their application was successful and that they have the job! This email will also look like it was sent from a legitimate business.
Everything at this point seems ok to the job seeker and he will be thrilled to hear that he has a job. But there will be one more red flag that must not be ignored.
Red flag 3: The job seeker needs to pay a small amount of money upfront in order to secure the position. The fake employer will state something like “you need to pay R200 for us to do the criminal and credit checks to finalise your application.” They might claim that there is an administration fee or any other reason why the victim must pay money urgently to secure the job.
Final red flag 4: This is possibly the most obvious danger sign. The employer will ask the job seeker to pay the money through a method that is not how businesses would normally be paid. For example, they might ask you to send the money through a local retail outlet (in South Africa they use Pep stores, eWallets, Airtime transfers and others). These methods are very difficult to trace.
This scam always ends in the unemployed person arriving at work the following day, only to be told that there never was a position and that they have been scammed.
I find this scam particularly cruel. How can criminals do this to such desperate, vulnerable people?
CLICK SAFE TIPS:
- Always call a company to check if they are recruiting for the position you have been offered.
- Never click links from emails or other messages that take you to a page that asks you for your personal information.
- MOST IMPORTANT: in South Africa, it is illegal for companies to charge anything to the people applying for jobs. No matter what tests they need to do – psychometric tests, criminal or credit checks – the company must pay. The job seeker must never pay anything for the application process.
