Scammers are preying on people searching for new jobs

We’ve all been there, scrolling through hundreds of job postings online, hoping the next application we send will be the one that lands our dream job.
But scammers are trying to take advantage of that hope, targeting people who are recently let go.
“It takes advantage of a pretty dire situation for people when they find themselves losing a primary role,” said Paul Keener, cybersecurity strategist at GuidePoint Security.
According to Keener, the scammers are usually reaching out to you through text or possibly LinkedIn private messages.
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“Imagine that you’re the person who just got laid off, you got 30 minutes notice, and you’re no longer apart of that company and then you get a text message that says hey we saw your profile on LinkedIn and we’d love for you to apply for this position just click here,” said Keener.
This is where the scam starts. Now they’re trying to get money out of you in a variety of ways.
The most common: getting your private information.
“Maybe they’ll ask you for things like your social security number, your date of birth, place of birth,” said Keener.
Another option is to get you to pay a recruiting fee for connecting you to a job that doesn’t exist.
“Except that’s not how it works, that’s not how legit recruiting works,” said Keener.
Or stringing you along even longer, pretending like they’re sending you money to set up a home office for when you start the job.
“They send you the check and they say you get whatever you need to be productive at home and then send us the check back and what that is is check fraud,” said Keener.
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Most of the time there is nothing you can do to get your money back.
If you do find you’ve become a victim, you should contact your financial institution immediately and also report it to the local police and FBI.
“That’s how they can deal with any type of broadly spread criminal activity, is they can put the pattern together and then put cuffs on bad guys,” said Keener.
So remember, most legitimate jobs won’t contact you first via text message. They also won’t ask for your social or other essential information for banking before you’re hired. And it’s important to be wary of people sending you checks before you’ve even joined the team.
This story was originally published by Jeff Morgan at Scripps News Baltimore.