Report: A Year in the Life of an Online Job Scam – A Longitudinal Study

Job scams are as old as jobs themselves. In past years, con artists would put a bad job ad up, fool a job seeker into giving up their money, and then physically move on to a new city. Now bad job ads have moved onto the Internet, with devastating consequences. The very things that make the Internet so effective for job seekers — speed, convenience, and a nationwide job search from a computer screen — are the same things that make it effective for fraudulent activity. Job seekers and job sites have unfortunately been targeted with sophisticated triangulation scams that move rapidly and seamlessly through a selection of job sites from coast to coast in a matter of days.

Job scams are as old as jobs themselves. In past years, con artists would put a bad job ad up, fool a job seeker into giving up their money, and then physically move on to a new city. Now bad job ads have moved onto the Internet, with devastating consequences. The very things that make the Internet so effective for job seekers — speed, convenience, and a nationwide job search from a computer screen — are the same things that make it effective for fraudulent activity. Job seekers and job sites have unfortunately been targeted with sophisticated triangulation scams that move rapidly and seamlessly through a selection of job sites from coast to coast in a matter of days.

Payment transfer scams begin with a con artist that pretends to be an employer. The con artist uses a job ad to lure in an unsuspecting job seeker, or they may use information from a resume they have found. The con artists can be quite convincing, and may even steal company names and corporate logos to convince victims that they are legitimate. After the con artist has won the job seeker’s trust, the con artist tricks the job seeker into giving up bank account numbers. The reasons given for this can be clever. One common reason the con artists give out is to say they only deliver paychecks by “direct deposit.”

This timeline tracks one job scam as it systematically wove its way through dozens of job sites over the course of a year and left multiple victims in its wake. Like a computer virus, the scam has evolved over time. It is an ugly evolution that has substantially harmed job seekers who have fallen victim to it.

The scam began sometime in August of 2003, and as of July 7 2004, is still active. Known names this scam goes under are Unk Electronics, Macrocommerce Intersales, Nanjing Panada*, Antares Electronics, Inc.*, BestElectrics, and Omega Inc. Although the names are different, the likelihood is a very strong that it is all the same job scam.

The World Privacy Forum contacted CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com and Hotjobs.com to invite them as industry leaders to provide information about how they protect jobseekers from fraud. These sites and others were also invited to participate in a joint teleconference to discuss possible solutions to job fraud, given the changed environment the industry now faces.