Employment Websites Play Fraud With Job Hunters

Job seekers in large numbers upload their resumes, including contact details on well-known employment Web sites. USAVoice.org claims to be one such site that calls itself a rapidly expanding news organization in the world. But this site has played false by enticing ambitious journalists to surrender personal information while posting their applications, reports The Washington Post.

23-year old Katherine Brinton from Philadelphia fell victim to the luring tactics of USAVoice.org. Nine months after she had posted her resume on Monster.com, USAVoice sent her e-mail saying they were searching for reporters having the best writing skills and an inherent dexterity to find facts.

Brinton filled out the details in the application form giving her name, address and telephone number. However, she did not receive any job offer. Instead there flowed in a series of junk e-mails promoting Viagra, penny stocks and payday loans.

Brinton had become a victim to a phishing scam. This particular scam was targeting job hunters in the recent months on popular Web sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. The phishers relayed apparently authentic e-mails to trick people into divulging personal information that they eventually used for fraudulent purposes.

Since USAVoice uses a Washington address, the D.C. area Better Business Bureau happened to note the scam. The address works slightly more than a mail drop. USAVoice has a related site called 'Instant Human Resources' that has a Rockville address, a mail drop too. The two have collected 8,000 applications since June.

These two companies are supposed generators of employment opportunities. But all that they send out are mass unsolicited e-mails, alleged consumers. Therefore, it appears these firms have designed a scheme to accumulate personal contact details and then sell them, said Edward J. Johnson III, CEO of the Better Business Bureau.

According to privacy experts, job sites could be generators of fraudulent ads. While seeking jobs online, people are most susceptible to fraud. Therefore, job sites should take the onus of ensuring that consumers take precautions in recognizing such scams, said Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum.

Although job sites are posting warnings, but scams seems to inevitably get through.

Related article: Employees Pose Internal Risk in European Businesses

» SPAMfighter News - 2/19/2007