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Employment scams, also know as job scams, are a form of advance fee fraud scamming where certain unscrupulous persons posing as recruiters and/or employers offer attractive employment opportunities which require the job seeker to pay them money in advance, usually under the guise of work visas, travel expenses, and out-of-pocket expenses. Advance fee fraud, often also known as the Nigerian money transfer fraud, Nigerian scam or 419 scam after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that it violates[1], is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from victims after making them believe they will get an immense fortune. ...
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Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ...
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ...
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An entry visa valid in all Schengen treaty countries Visas for Laos, Thailand, and Sri Lanka A visa (short for the Latin carta visa, lit. ...
Travel is the transport of people on a trip or journey. ...
The scams typically involve lucrative offers of employment in Europe, the Middle East, West Africa, or South Africa with money demanded to be paid to an agency or travel agent for visas or travel costs. These companies often present themselves with official looking websites and documentation. Once the victim has paid the advanced fees for employment, the business either declines employment or ceases operating as soon as the transfer is finalized. Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ...
A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...
Western Africa (UN subregion) Maghreb West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. ...
A travel agency is a store where individuals or families go to buy travel packages. ...
The front page of the English Wikipedia Website. ...
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Wall Street, Manhattan In economics, business refers to the social science of managing people to organize and maintain collective productivity toward accomplishing particular creative and productive goals. ...
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This type of scam has become more and more frequent recently due to the popularity of Nigerian 419 scams, and growing suspicion towards e-mails offering to transfer money from bank accounts, especially those originating in Africa. Unlike 419 scams, job scams tend to mostly target persons looking for employment in other nations such as hopeful immigrants or contractors and operate out of nations with high immigrant and foreign employment rates. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
For other uses, see Bank (disambiguation). ...
A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. ...
Immigration is the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently. ...
A contractor is a legal term for one who enters into a binding agreement to perform a certain service or provide a certain product in exchange for valuable consideration, monetary, goods,services, even barter arrangements. ...
It is advisable to be wary of any job offerings which arrive in e-mail unsolicited and eventually require anyone to pay a fee in advance, particularly if the fee is asked to be paid through a financial services company such as Western Union, or if one must pay the amount to a bank or person in a third country (especially a West African nation) that is suspiciously unrelated to either party. Most reputable companies and/or agencies will absorb these costs themselves if they are the ones seeking the employee. Western Union is an American financial services and communications company. ...
Types of job scams
Resume blasting The simplest form of employment scamming offers guarantees of employment within a fixed time period for a fee (such as 30 days). These "seeker companies" then distribute your resume to prospective employers (known as CV or resume “blasting”) in hopes of tricking the victim into believing the authenticity of their business. The victim then pays money to have his or her details sent to employers who are hiring, but what the fraudsters do instead is spam hundreds or thousands of employers, industry websites, and online magazines with a victim's details in hopes of having the companies send them correspondence they can use to scam new victims. Occasionally, they will also have the company pay for travel and other work related expenses by passing themselves off as the victim, thus scamming both the employers and job seekers.
Some of these "employment agencies" offer a money back guarantee as an incentive so as to bait victims who do not wish to pay money for a failed employment search. Very few job seekers ever receive a refund, though it has been known to occur. Recently, a Canadian company was being investigated by authorities for carrying out and continuing to advertise such a scheme.
Bogus job offers More sophisticated scams advertise jobs with real companies and offer lucrative salaries and conditions with the fraudsters pretending to be recruitment agents. A bogus telephone interview may take place and after some time you are informed that the job is yours. To secure the job you are instructed to send money for your work visa or travel costs to the agent or a bogus travel agent who works on their behalf. No matter what the variation, they always involve the job seeker sending them or their agent money, credit card or bank account details.
Another form involves bogus jobs being placed on legitimate Internet job boards. For example, a fraudster places a bogus job listing on a legitimate employment site, which is then e-mailed to thousands of job seekers wishing to find a job meeting that criteria. The fraudsters then take advantage of those who contact them, by asking for employment, visa, or travel fees in advance before they can consider the person for employment. Often, they create fabricated websites mirroring the real company sites, or create fake websites parodying a non-existent company which is legitimately registered in their origin country for the sole purpose of scamming victims.
Most often, fraudsters will use stolen credit card information to pay for posting their job opportunities on legitimate sites, as well as paying for the hosting of a bogus company's site.
How to detect a job scam Be wary of unsolicited job offers in other countries which arrive through e-mail. If soliciting the job yourself through a legitimate site, pay attention to the wording in e-mails as most companies will try to use the best grammar and spelling as possible and will not use slang words. Watch the domain from which the correspondence is sent. Large companies that hire foreigners do not use free e-mail providers such as yahoo or hotmail, but rather their own personal domain names. Check and see whether the e-mail has been sent to multiple users, or if the recipient of the e-mail is the same as the sender, this implies that the e-mail has been sent to hundreds or thousands of users and not just you.
Check a genuine e-mail address/domain name by extracting the text after the “@” sign, and adding “www.” as a prefix and test the address in your browser. If genuine it should show the web site of the company the person is supposed to belong to. Check for telephone and fax numbers and contact the company directly to ensure the person actually works for them.
It is important to note that genuine employers or agencies will never ask for money for visa processing or travel costs. They will either absorb the costs themselves or deduct from your salary once you start the job. You may be required to provide your own air fares, but you should do this through your means unless they are willing to pay for the costs themselves. Be aware that travelling and meeting with these individuals can be dangerous and it is not advisable to have them pick you up at the airport or meet you at a hotel, nor is it advisable to allow them to accommodate you anywhere but a public hotel in major city. Decline any offer to stay with them while there, and insist instead to be allowed to book your own accommodations. Decline to go anywhere with them, and instead opt for meeting them at the desired location, or a more public location at your own discretion. Do not meet with them in private, unless it is at an office in a public business plaza in a major business or industrial center or a company headquarters building. Treat this employment much the same as you would in your own home nation where you would not interact with an employer when seeking employment outside of a business environment. If you are asked to meet in an area that seems suspiscious to you, do not proceed and decline to meet them unless it is in a public, or more formal location as there is the risk of kidnappping. If you are threatened in any way, immediately seek help from the local authorities.
Always ask for and verify all details for the company you are looking to work with including phone, fax and the main address of the business, or corporation. This should also be done for any third party employment agencies who might be using real information stolen from a real company. These details can usually be verified through international directory inquiries or the local Chamber of Commerce of the city it is located in, if the given information is difficult to verify, incorrect, suspicious (such as the phone number for a company based in Dubai having a country calling code in Nigeria), or the agent is reluctant to give these details, it is best to report them to authorities or disregard them entirely.
Lastly, only consider working for International Companies, especially in West Africa. Always make sure to contact the head office, or an office outside of the host country, to confirm the identity of the person that has contacted you.
See also Advance fee fraud, often also known as the Nigerian money transfer fraud, Nigerian scam or 419 scam after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that it violates[1], is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from victims after making them believe they will get an immense fortune. ...
419eater. ...
Scam baiting is the practice of pretending interest in a fraudulent scheme in order to manipulate a scammer. ...
External links - A directory of known job scammers, and fake companies.
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