DETECTING FAKE JOBS ON THE INTERNET

DETECTING FAKE JOBS ON THE INTERNET

When looking online for work, we can often come across obviously fake job adverts. However, some, despite being just as deceiving, manage to confuse us and we can become interested in them.

Here are a few tips for differentiating between real and false job ads:

• A job offer sent by an unknown employer directly to your email address:No one is going to come to your house to offer you a job and no one is going to send you such an email that would normally go into your spam. Furthermore, these kinds of emails usually ask the addressee for a number of payments for administrative costs in order to start the process. It is a trick.
• They ask you call a special-rate phone number: Some fake job ads ask the addressee to call a special-rate phone number, such as 902, in order to obtain further information. When you call, they will keep you on the line for as long as possible, asking for different information, so as to increase the cost of the call.
• You’ll be rich if you work from home:In post covid world, a lot of jobs – and well- paying jobs- have moved to WFM, so this statement is not completely true. The reference to be changed to WFM jobs that promise to make rich you quickly and ask you to make upfront investment.
• False employment portals: There is an ever-increasing number of websites that appear to be job portals when, in actual fact, they are not. How do they work? They obtain job ads that were previously published on Infojobs, Infoempleo or LinkedIn and reproduce them. To apply for it, they usually make you register and you are either taken to an invalid link or you are redirected to the real –usually expired– job advert. The only reason for doing this is to collect your personal data. To avoid falling into the trap, only register on recognised employment websites.
• Check the email server:One of the most effective ways of finding out if a job ad is fake, is to verify if the emails received were sent from the company’s real domain. If the job ad is sent in an email from a free email address provider (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.), it is likely to be fake.
• Fake questionnaires This is a very common kind of fraud. Jobseekers are enticed by the idea of getting paid for frequently filling in questionnaires. On accessing the questionnaires, a sum of money has to be paid which, in most cases, is never returned.

Despite all that, if you have been deceived, contact the website on which the ad was published.

We hope that you have found this information useful. Now you know, be careful not to fall victim to tricksters.