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.
The following four tips can help jobseekers protect themselves from falling prey to payment forwarding scams.
1. Never give personal bank account, PayPal, or credit card numbers to an employer.
2. Never agree to have funds or paychecks direct deposited to any of your accounts by a new employer.
3. Never forward, transfer, or “wire” money to an employer.
4. Do not transfer money and retain a portion for payment.
RSS, a technology that collects information from Web sites, bundles it together and then sends it to individuals to read offline is gaining popularity. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndicationor rich site summary. Right now, it looks like RSS may become an important part of how people use the Internet. For collecting and aggregating news headlines and tidbits from newspapers and blogs, RSS is convenient and helpful. RSS does have the potential for some real drawbacks for job seekers unless it is thoughtfully deployed by job search sites. However, the drawbacks are a fairly simple matter to correct.
* The December 12 consumer report relating to what became the UMAB scam may be found at
* FTC Help Line: Call this number to file a complaint about fraudulent jobs. (877) 382-4357.
Thank you to all of the job seekers who have contacted the WPF and shared their experiences with us. Without the UMAB victims’ information, researchers would have had much greater difficulty piecing together the puzzle this scam presented.
