The number of complaints from applicants, who are using recruitment agencies has more than doubled in the last two years.
Industry experts have said that criminals are using adverts for fictitious jobs to con people out of personal details or money. As an example, one candidate was asked to spend £280 on an HR Course after applying for a job on a legitimate website. She was then asked to generate an advert and then post it on her own social media and to appear as a recruiter. After this she was asked to pass on the names and emails addresses of all those who had left their details on her site, numbering up to 80 a week, who trusted their so-called new bosses.
She had had a job interview and some training, coming appearing as genuine, but she realised after a week that it was a scam to get hold of the details. Look for vagueness on the websites, coupled with fake explanations that the bogus company were in their start-up phase and still developing their online presence. Some are experiencing impersonations of their recruitment agency even after they have reported the situation and raised concerns. It is without doubt worrying when you have an established company and spent all those years developing a business and reputation.
It is not always jobseekers who are being targeted. Some time ago, bosses at a Kent farm were alerted to the fact that scammers were advertising fictitious jobs at their business. Companies would receive emails from someone who had responded to a job advert that had spurious origins. These could be senior positions, maritime careers or engineering, not just picker or farm jobs. Scammers try to con people out of a fee for administration done. Sometimes the details of the business involved does not exactly match the way the scammers have represented them so do as much research as possible, maybe contact the firm directly.
Scammers have used WhatsApp, text messages, emails and job boards to leave jobseekers with fake employment. Trading Standard are aware of this and warn of how convincing some of the communication can be. Scammers take the details and sell them to other criminals. Watch out for unrealistic salary offers, vague job descriptions, requests for unwarranted personal information or money up front.
The average amount lost per report to Action Fraud was as much as £4 707 last year. Jobs Aware, who advises workers about scams, say that Online Safety act requires platforms to perform due diligence and remove scam from their sites.
Lorraine Laryea, chief standards officer at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation is concerned about scammers targeting a market where people feel that honesty is genuine in communication. She says jobseekers should never have to pay to get a job, and recruiters should never ask for payment to find them work. It is illegal! Similarly, avoid paying upfront or admin. fees, legitimate employers would never ask you to do so.
You can report a scam text message by forwarding it to 7726 which spells out SPAM on a keypad. If it is a SPAM email forward it to report@phishing.gov.uk
WhatsApp has details on its website about how to protect yourself from scams.
