How to Keep Safe from Job Board Scammers

No matter how stringent our job board's privacy protection measures are, scammers are always trying to outsmart us just to gain access to our database. Like any other online and even in-person facility, scammers are ever present. They stop at nothing and will do all cunning things to serve their fraudulent and thieving purposes.

Any responsible job board’s countermeasures should include an information dissemination on how job seekers can keep safe from the fraudsters.

Here are 3 JOB BOARD SCAM INDICATORS to GUIDE YOU!

#1: UNVERIFIABLE CONTACT INFORMATION - When you get invited for an interview, make sure you check whether the employer’s email address and phone number match the email address and phone number posted on their website.

• Be wary of invitations sent through generic email addresses such as gmail.com, yahoo.com, protonmail.com, etc. especially when the employer has their own email domain.

  • EXAMPLE: For HireVeterans, our verifiable email address is @hireveterans.com in accordance to our website address www.HireVeterans.com.

• Check whether the area code of the number used in the interview process matches the location of the employer.

  • EXAMPLE: An employer claiming to be based in New York is using area code 209 - area code for California Counties.

Always practice due diligence and countercheck the interviewer’s email address and phone number according to the company website or other available and verifiable information on the internet.

#2: REQUEST FOR MONEY / FINANCIAL INFORMATION - A legitimate job offer SHOULD NEVER ask for money from the job seeker more so for the latter’s financial (bank or credit card) information. If a potential employer asks for payment or for your bank information during the interview or hiring process, it’s highly likely that it is a SCAM.

• NEVER send money for employment.

• NEVER divulge your financial information.

HireVeterans job board is FREE for job seekers from registration up to employment.

Other schemes also include asking for the job seeker's date of birth and social security number.DO NOT DIVULGE your birth date along with, and most especially, your SSN. This should raise your suspicion for FRAUD.

#3: RECRUITERS POSING AS EMPLOYERS NOT REGISTERED IN HV JOB BOARD - After uploading your resume, a recruiter may contact you stating that they represent a certain company and are interested in hiring you for their available position. The first thing that you should do when given this information is to search the HV job board to check whether that named company is indeed part of HV’s roster of employers.

• If, after searching our job board, you do not get a result showing the employer’s profile, then you know it’s a SCAM.

• However, if you see that the company name is indeed affiliated with our job board, your next move should be to verify if the job that they are offering is listed in that company’s HV profile.

• It’s also an obvious RED FLAG if the job that is being offered to you is not in alignment with the company’s industry or usual job openings.

  • EXAMPLE: The company is said to be a TRAVEL FIRM but the vacancy is for a DATA ANALYST position requiring you to decipher data online from various non-travel related sources.

CONCLUSION

Scammers are not exclusive to the job board industry. They are everywhere. They are in B2B sites. They are on your social media platforms. They are in your entertainment streaming pages. They lurk in various sites online with the aim to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. 

While we do our best to safeguard our job board and protect user privacy, we also ask that our users - employers and job seekers alike - exercise caution when sharing sensitive information online. As indicated earlier, Hire Veterans job board will NEVER ask for sensitive information (such as bank accounts and SSN) to employ job seekers or promote job vacancies. 

Hopefully, this short blog can educate readers on how to keenly judge fraudulent job board schemes. If you fall victim to such double-dealing tactics, we encourage you to preserve evidence and report your experience to us. Simultaneously, you are urged to report such wrongdoings to the authorities so we can bring the scammers to justice.