In God I trust. Everyone else is Under Suspicion!

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I’m between jobs right now.

Of course, I’m on LinkedIn, Indeed, Dice, ZipRecruiter, all the biggies.

But yesterday, something happened that surprised me. It was a scam.

And I almost fell for it.

Here’s a copy of the email text:

Sounds legit.

There was a couple of problems with this, however.

• A Gmail reply address. Gmail is basically a “Free” email address handed out through Google. All you have to do is go there and apply for it. The reason that’s a red flag is no self-respecting company is going to use gmail for their official correspondences.
• I couldn’t recall having put in with the company.
• It asked me to set up an account on webex. If any outfit wants you set up something or use some off product app to communicate with them, that’s a big flag. Something stinks here.
• It didn’t give me the option to “Accept” or “Decline” the invite.
• I got the same identical email from another outfit five minutes later.

In both cases, they were “Signed” by someone with the company.

I did a search for the two companies and guess what, they actually exist. And to make matters even more interesting, the people who supposedly signed the emails are real people. They are listed in the company directory with color pictures of them.

And I don’t know if you noted this, but the times set up for the interview was the same and both were Eastern Standard Time. One company was in Louisiana. The other in Colorado. It made sense to me that they’d use their time zone. While the scheduling software is able to convert it into your time zone, I found that a little odd.

What happened was someone did a little reconnaissance, got the names of people with the company and plugged them into a fake email. I reached out to both companies and let them know someone was taking their name in vain. I figure if they were stupid enough to use Gmail to reach out to prospective employee’s, they’d at least understand by being cautious.

I’m lucky in that I have a recruiter in the family. I checked with my daughter, Crystal, about the gmail thing and she said they never use gmail to set up remote interviews. She also added tthat they always talk to the person they want to interview beforehand so they know it’s coming. They set the time up with them, not try to impose a time.

So, I did some more checking. The FTC reports that there is a rise in outfits scamming job hunters and one of the big triggers is a public email address. Any reputable company would, like I said, use their domain mail to reach out. A reputable site isn’t hard to get. I’m a nobody author and I have one to include email addresses I own. I say that because I saw one poster actually state that maybe a company can’t afford one (it’s not that expensive). My comment! If they can’t afford a legit email domain, then they can’t afford you.

So, what have I done to help protect myself.

• I limit my job boards. I get dozens of things from different sites. I’m limiting myself to the big four.
• I check out the recruiter for a job listing. What does their professional Linkedin site look like? Missing a pic? Big red flag. Not very many followers? Another big red flag. Who have they worked for? Who follows them?
• I google the company. Do they have an actual site? Does the job listed exist on their site. If it does, I put in for it on their site. I’ve also in some cases done a “Whois Lookup.” That helps me to verify if that site is even legit.
• I’m building up my list of “Trusted” recruiters. I’ve got their email addresses, their phone numbers, and I know who they are. Anyone who comes out of left field is suspect.
• I keep track of the jobs I apply to. I’ve an Excel Spreadsheet that I put in the Company Name, Date, and position. I also mention what I did. If there’s a recruiter mentioned, I enter their name and Linkedin account.
• Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or God-forbid, AOL in the email address. You automatically go to the junk file and reported to my provider.

I made the comment to a person years ago that the Internet was a little like “walking down a dark alley.”

Not much has changed.

You have to watch yourself out there even still.

Mom was right it seems.

Be careful of Dark Alleys and don’t go down them.