Greg's Corner

Scams prey on desperate jobseekers

By Greg Collier

Pundits and naysayers will try to tell you that nobody wants to work anymore. What many claim the real problem to be is that many employers won’t pay a living wage. So, some jobseekers could be forgiven for ignoring red flags when being offered a job with good wages from someone who turns out to be a scammer.

A woman in Arizona recently lost $5000 to a scammer who promised her a $72,000 a year job. The scammers claimed to be from a legitimate company that is headquartered in Australia, but has positions in the US. This would be a work from home position, and she was hired after an audio-only online interview. Then a scam familiar to our readers began to take hold.

The Arizona woman was sent a check for $5000 by her supposed employer. She was instructed to deposit the check into her banking account, keep $300 for herself, and use the remaining $4700 to buy office equipment for her position. So, she deposited the check and after the check showed up in her account, she bought $4700 worth of money orders and sent them to the so-called office equipment vendor.

But, as this story always goes, the check sent to the victim turned out to be a fraudulent check. Banks will make the funds available after a deposit out of courtesy within a few days. However, it takes longer than that for the banks to determine a check is fake. This leaves scam victims in the lurch, with them usually having to pay the amount of the check back to the bank.

No real employer will ever ask you to deposit a check into your banking account, then ask you to use the money to pay someone else. Most big businesses have fleets of accountants and accounts payable people to make payments like that.

If you’re hired very quickly after an online interview or hired on the spot, there’s a good chance the offer isn’t legitimate. If they’re representing themselves as being from an actual company, go to their website to see if the position they’re offering actually exists.