How to spot scam advert when looking for remote job?
There is more and more people switching to remote jobs every day thanks to decent internet speeds and unfortunate events we need to witness during our lifetime, I’m referring here to Covid-19 virus which pushed many to their desks at home setups. You would say that now finding a legit remote opportunity should be easy as expect, sadly this isn’t always a case.
How to immediately spot a scam?
There are always red flags when you do your research, searching for a job and applying to any available position out there can lead you to various problems and waste of your time. You need to learn on how to spot and differ legit adverts to the ones made by scammers.
That wonderful offer…
Golden rule, like pretty much anything in the life is going by this old adage “if it is too good to be true than probably is”. If someone is offering outrageous amount of money for a minimum effort required you could easily classify this as a scam. Scammers often do that to grab as much as your personal information as possible, I even heard of cases where scammer asked for a payment to secure a job!? Who would pay to have a job, it is usually other way round!
They contact you first
Often you may see an email that so called company have seen your resume online and only you seems to be a perfect match for the position which is now open. All your skills are perfectly align with what they are looking for in the prospect candidate. There is no doubt that you are a talented person but apart from the flattery there is no authenticity in the message. They are offering a position based on CV of yours which is publicly available, that’s it.
You will probably read that interview is not necessary. Be careful and cautious, always make enquiry about the job role and the company itself to make sure it is legitimate.
It must be pointed that not all of the recruiters who are reaching out to you are scammers. This article is made only to guide you on how to possible spot the invisible red flag.
They leave a job ad without proper role description
Let’s face it, most of the scammers are not educated as they chosen the life path of infinite lies so you can expect to caught them red handed eventually. Expect to see various spelling, grammatical, punctuation and sentence formation mistakes. This is as scammers do not have professionals to do proof reading for them. If you see a message which could fit traditional spam template, walk away from this “lucrative proposal” right away.
A proper job advert should look and sound legitimate, authentic, should be with company profile and both email address and contact numbers listed, even though it is a work remotely job.
Always search for qualities like: reasonable pay with a proper job role title, the number of years of experience needed, certain set of quality and skills required, list of daily work and tasks to be performed, a professional email address. The generic gmail, hotmail, yahoo emails should trigger a warning immediately.
They are asking financial and confidential information
As mentioned before scammers might try to get you into entering your personal and financial information when promising you a remote job. They always say that applicant have to fill out the information for their background check and can direct them to phishing website which is simply designed and made to steal your data.
Once they have your information, they may use it further for various frauds or even send them to dark web! If someone need your debit/credit card details, personal identity details, bank information or Insurance number, avoid them immediately.
They don’t use real company email addresses
Any job offer should be send from company account to company email address and it cannot be a personal email address. It should contain company name, address, contact telephone number and their website. In UK you can easily verify if such a company exist on https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk , at this address you will find and will be able to compare companies details to what you have received, there are even director’s names or companies annual account submissions. You can also find company domain name at https://whois.domaintools.com ,this website will tell you even when domain was registered, by who and where it is registered.
Pay attention to company name spelling on their website as they may use similar domain names to trick you. As a pro tip, if someone email you from gmail, yahoo and similar free email address you can copy and paste entire address into google search to see if it exists.
They ask you to pay money upfront
If anyone will ask you to pay money or give any credit information to complete the hiring process or to be able to book interview, you are being scammed. Even if amount they are asking sounds “acceptable” and relatively small, no employer would ask you to pay to have a job, it is always other way round. Never pay money to any strangers on internet unless you are buying something and you did enough research and you are happy to take a risk!
You are offered the job immediately without a need of verifying any of your details
If a potential employer what it seems cares very little about your qualifications and skills, the chance that they are not genuinely is pretty high! Scammers always try to offer you a job even without holding an interview or analysing and verifying any of details which you have submitted.
There is always a process for hiring, company need to do their background checks, verify that you are the one who is applying and they will most likely always check your references. The process like this can take as little as couple of days up to even few months, if you cannot see any of that happening, and you’ve been offered a job immediately with a great pay and no or little work required, be aware. Miracles can happen but what is the likelihood of winning a lottery. We all know that is pretty slim…
Person you speak with doesn’t seems to be real
A legitimate business will never contact you over facebook or any other social platform, the linkedin could be exemption of this rule but as always do your research and check if you are talking with a real person as expected. See if person you speak with sounds like someone who can really have a position within a company you are accepting a job offer for. If they sound unprofessional or have suspicious sounding accent, do more research. Don’t be afraid to prepare a list of questions before interview as there is no doubt you would want to know more about your future job!
Are you looking to find a remote job currently or maybe you found one already. What was the process like? Let me know in the comments below.
All the best,
Lucas
