How fake job posts can cost job seekers money

MONTANA — Fake job listings have been targeting people searching online for work and officials said those scams could lead to stolen information and financial loss.

Experts said scam posts were showing up on social media and popular job sites, often advertising quick pay or flexible remote work. They said the listings could look legitimate at first.

One warning sign involved unexpected job offers sent by text instead of a normal application process.

“I think the most prominent we see lately is to text messages of job offers of make up to $1,000 a week working two hours remote. That’s a scam immediately when you see it. Um, so people reaching out directly to you, that typically doesn’t happen. It’s usually you applying to job interviews and job postings,” said Allie Coker, owner of Express Employment Professionals.

Chase Scheuer with the Montana Department of Justice said scammers often focused on people who had been out of work and needed money quickly.

“What we tend to see with these job posting scams and the people that scammers are going after is people who have been kind of jobless maybe for a couple of months and rent’s due next month, and you don’t have a source of income,” said Scheuer.

Scheuer explained that some scams moved far beyond a fake listing. He said scammers could build a full fake hiring process to make the offer seem real.

“So you'll you'll apply, you'll fill out the application work. They'll even have a fake interview process, maybe multiple fake interview processes, and really string you along in a stringing along. And it all looks legitimate. But then what they do is they hire you, they say, congratulations, you're hired. We're going to send you a check for, let's say, $300 to, buy supplies that you need, printer paper, ink, whatever it may be,” said Scheuer. “Well, after they send you a check, they call you and say, hey, we accidentally sent you that check, and it says $3,000, not $300. Can you send us back the difference? So in this example, $2,700 and we’ll be good. Well of course you just got hired or looking to get hired by these people.”

“So you think that you have the money $3,000. You send them the $2,700, four hours later, the check doesn't clear because it's not a real check. And next thing you know, you're out $27,000,” said Scheuer.

Experts said people could protect themselves by checking whether a company was real and avoiding any job that asked them to send money. They also said reporting suspicious listings could help keep the scams from spreading.