Job seekers alerted to employment scams

September 14, 2020

Beware of job offers that seem too good to be true. A resident in Lake County recently received a package from a supposed HR department of a foreign company that had reviewed her resume and wanted her to download an app to interview for an administrative assistant position. She received phony documents detailing her wages and also received an official-looking cashier’s check for more than $5,800 purportedly for her to buy software needed for the work from home job.

Regardless of the pitch, many scams follow a similar pattern. First, the scam artist sends a realistic check and asks the victim to deposit it. Once the check is deposited (but before it has cleared), the victim is told to wire or otherwise send a portion of the funds to someone else, possibly out of the country. Later, after the victim has sent his or her own money, the victim finds out from the bank that the deposited check was a counterfeit and any funds sent are lost.

Job seekers should be sure to research the companies offering the work by contacting the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and the local Better Business Bureau. Job seekers also can use a search engine to look up reviews by searching the company’s name along with terms such as “complaint,” “scam,” or “review.”

Signs of this type of potential job scam include:

• Communication from company representatives that use free or personal email accounts to correspond, such as those from gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com or aol.com
• Receiving a check before any work is performed
• Being hired from an online chat room or app without ever meeting anyone in person
• Claims about making hundreds or thousands of dollars doing very little work
• Vague job descriptions
• Requests to wire transfer money or purchase prepaid money cards, and interviews conducted strictly through a messaging system.