5 Ways to Identify a Fake Job Listing
Imagine you are looking for a job and a recruiter calls you about a dream job you’ve always wanted, with a lucrative salary, and an added opportunity to travel overseas too! It would be an offer too good to refuse. After a quick chat, the recruiter sends you a link to fill up your personal details. The recruiter then gives you a confirmation call and lets you know that you need to bear a portion of the flight and relocation charges amounting to Rs.50,000. You decide to make the payment and are eagerly waiting for further instructions. But suddenly, you are not able to contact the recruiter, and you don’t have a job in hand. This is what happens with thousands of people* in the country.
The rise in remote jobs coupled with high unemployment rates has led to an increase in job scams. According to the latest data# from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the average unemployment rate across the country is 7.85%. This gives fraudsters access to innocent job seekers who can be exploited owing to their desperate need for a job.
Fraudsters make money by advertising jobs with attractive titles and salaries or sharing unsafe fake part-time job links via SMSes or WhatsApp messages. Once you sign up for the job, you will be asked to make a payment, promising you a higher amount upon completion of the first task. They may also credit small amounts to your account to gain your trust. Eventually, they will distance themselves from you, and you will not be able to contact them again.
5 Signs a Job Scammer is Targeting You:
Here are 5 of the most common ways in which fraudsters try to dupe innocent job seekers. If you are on the lookout for a job, do watch out for these signs and stay safe from fake job listings.
- Asks for sensitive information: If a recruiter asks for personal information such as your name, date of birth, or home address, you can be sure that it is a fraudster attempting to source sensitive information from you to access your bank account/credit card. Typically, recruiters ask basic information around your educational background and professional experience and then set up interviews with the employer, post which an offer letter is released. It is usually at the time of joining that the company requests background information for verification and record.
- Offers exorbitantly high salaries not in line with industry standards: A high salary is offered for little work in order to make the listing more appealing and draw you into the scam. This may involve a link that contains malware that could access confidential information on your device. Alternatively, in place of a corrupt link, fraudsters may request for personal details and try to lure you into sharing sensitive information.
- Errors in the job description: A fake job posting may have a few easy-to-miss grammatical or spelling errors such as Phonepay.com instead of PhonePe.com which is a major red flag as it may lead you to an unsafe website. Also, vague job descriptions with no legitimate website to back up the company are indicators that you may be reading a fake job listing.
- Instant job offer: If the recruiter offers the job within minutes after a call with them with little or no background verification or an interview, it is highly likely that the persons in contact are fraudsters. An authentic recruiter would do due diligence in ensuring the candidate fits the role in the company and vice versa, by conducting interviews and offering a salary in line with industry standards.
- Asks commission: The fraudster sometimes asks for a payment as a commission for offering a job by posing as a legitimate person in the organisation or a job consultancy. After you transfer the amount in anticipation of a job, the fraudsters will break all communication channels and never get back with a job or money. Remember, you never have to pay recruiters any money for a job.
How to Avoid Job Scams
- Do not click on suspicious links, especially when led by any of the warning signs above or links that come with some kind of benefit — monetary or otherwise.
- Do not entertain callbacks if you are not sure if the job is legitimate.
- Never share confidential information such as credit/debit card number, card expiry date, CVV, OTP, etc., with anyone, including PhonePe officials.
- Lastly, report and block. Remember, it is best to report and block these numbers.
What You Should do if You are a Victim of a Job Scam
In case you have been duped by a job scammer on PhonePe, you can immediately raise the issue in the following ways:
- PhonePe app: Go to the Help section and raise an issue under “have an issue with the transaction” option.
- PhonePe Customer Care Number: You can call PhonePe customer care on 80–68727374 / 022–68727374 to raise an issue, post which the customer care agent will raise a ticket and help with your issue.
- Webform submission: You can also raise a ticket using PhonePe’s webform, https://support.phonepe.com/
- Social media: You can report fraudulent incidents via PhonePe’s social media handles
Twitter — https://twitter.com/PhonePeSupport
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/OfficialPhonePe
5. Grievance: To report a grievance on an existing complaint, you can login to https://grievance.phonepe.com/ and share the ticket ID previously raised.
6. Cyber cell: Lastly, you can report fraud complaints at the nearest Cyber Crime cell or register a complaint online at https://www.cybercrime.gov.in/ or contact the Cyber Crime Cell helpline at 1930.
Important reminder — PhonePe never asks for confidential or personal details. Ignore all mails claiming to be from PhonePe if they are not from the phonepe.com domain. If you suspect fraud, please contact the authorities immediately.
