What is job recruitment fraud?
Job recruitment fraud is when an unknown individual uses a fake job offer to steal money or personal information. This offer usually comes in the form of an ad for a personal assistant or "work from home" opportunity. The job ads are delivered innocuously via plain-sounding emails or physical signage, making it harder for technology to flag them as suspicious.
Why do scammers do this?
Generally, the purpose of this type of fraud is to lure a victim into providing information in order to steal the victim's money. This includes sending money to be laundered or outright theft of funds directly from the victim’s bank or credit card accounts. These types of scams will attempt to extract as much personal information as possible to steal the victim's identity in order to open lines of credit, or submit fake tax returns.
How to spot recruitment fraud
In short, if an offer seems too good to be true... it probably is!
Is the job advertised outside normal channels? Was it a street sign hung in a public place, an e-mail, Craigslist posting, or an unsolicited phone call? All of such methods should be treated with extreme caution until you can verify the opportunity is legitimate. Job offers are typically posted on a business's website, or legitimate services that specialize in job ads (CareerBuilder, Indeed, Monster, etc). Xavier jobs for students are offered exclusively via Handshake.
Does the company have a web site? If so, look to see if there is a "careers" section where the job is posted. Be wary of e-mails from free or low-cost hosts such as Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, and Yahoo. A legitimate business should not be using a free mail service.
Are you offered a formal interview and human resources paperwork? You should immediately suspect anyone who offers to hire you "on-the-spot". Another red flag is if you are offered a job without paperwork or human resources training. A legitimate company cannot pay you without completion of tax forms. Ask for their tax identification number and investigate to make sure it is legitimate. If they lack a tax ID number, they cannot legally withhold taxes from you.
Are you asked to move money around or buy gift cards? Assume you get this far and everything still seems to be in order: the company seems legitimate, they have interviewed you and guided you through HR processes etc. If a representative asks to send you money to deposit into your own account, it is a scam. The motive for this is to possibly launder money or (as in most cases) the check they give you will bounce; your bank will pursue you to cover the amount. They will send you a check and ask you to deposit it in your account and then buy gift cards or send money to other bank accounts. They may also off to let you keep some of the money as payment. All these behaviors are large red flags. As a safety measure, if you are sent a check and told to deposit it, don’t withdraw the money until the check clears the issuing bank. This can take a few days to process. Contact your bank for more information.
What to do if you're tricked
If you have sent money or been tricked into laundering money, immediately contact local law enforcement to file a police report.
If the fraud involved your Xavier e-mail address or someone else's Xavier e-mail address, please also contact Information Technologies at 745-4357 to involve our Information Security Officer in this investigation.