How to Spot Remote Job Scams

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  Hi. My name is Brie Reynolds, and I am a

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  career coach at Flex Jobs, which is the leading and

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  most trusted site for remote job listings.

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  And I'm here today to talk to you about how

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  to spot remote job scams.

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  The reason that we need to be pretty careful when

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  we're looking for a remote job online is because there

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  are 60 to 70 scams for everyone, really job listing

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  when it comes to remote jobs and some of them

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  are pretty easy to spot.

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  Others are much more sophisticated.

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  So it's really important to know what to look for

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  to keep yourself safe and find a real job.

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  I'm gonna be talking about three different things today.

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  What are remote job scams, how to actually spot them

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  and how to check a suspicious job or company that

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  you found to see if it is a scam or

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  a real opportunity.

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  So the first thing I'm going to cover is what

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  are remote job scams?

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  Really. The are a couple of different things.

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  There are fake remote job ads.

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  They are often seeking sensitive information or money from you,

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  and there are also more sophisticated scams that we call

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  copycat companies, where the scammers will actually pose as a

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  riel well known company on, and they will use their

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  logo, their website designed to create a brand new site

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  that lures people in for a remote job scam.

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  So some of the ways that you can actually spot

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  different remote job scams are if you receive a fake

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  job listing or a fake email, you have to know

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  that when you're searching online, most job words do not

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  pre screen the jobs and companies that are on their

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  site. So you are really responsible when you're searching online

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  for finding and verifying that a job is legitimate, you

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  might also receive emails that promise these types of jobs,

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  and you can also get them on social media and

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  sites like Lengthen, where you're interacting with different people.

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  Scammers try to use those situations as well to get

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  into your messages and your emails to lure you into

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  their scam.

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  Most of these will promise something like lots of money

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  or really easy work, and it's also extremely easy to

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  get a job offer.

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  Sometimes they will offer you a job on the spot.

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  They might actually email you and say that they'd like

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  to offer you a job, or they will interview you

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  very briefly on a phone or video interview, or oftentimes,

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  an instant messaging or online chat interview, which is also

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  a big red flag, and then they'll offer you the

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  job immediately.

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  They'll also urge you to accept the job really quickly,

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  which is a big red flag.

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  So you want to be able to spot these different

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  things in order to keep yourself states.

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  The other thing to pay attention to is the spelling

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  and grammar in a job listing.

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  If there are lots of mistakes or there's lots of

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  capitalisation or punctuation, lots of dollar signs and exclamation points,

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  that's a big sign that you're looking at a scam

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  as well.

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  One of the things that most of these scams have

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  in common is that they will ask you for personal

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  sensitive data like your bank account number, credit card information,

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  social Security number and any other important information like that

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  that you really need to keep safe and secure A

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  legitimate job will not ask for any of that information

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  until well after the job offer has been made and

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  you are being on board in the position, and they'll

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  only do that in terms of setting up a a

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  paycheck deposit or getting your information for tax purposes.

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  They also in scams, will often ask you to do

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  things like wire transfers for money, whether it's receiving a

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  check or receiving money into your bank account or sending

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  money. And they might also ask you to do something

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  like purchase gift cards and send those and you'll be

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  reimbursed any time you're using your own funds in order

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  to do a job that's a huge red flag.

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  You also should not have to pay for any supposed

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  to work from home kits or software programs to get

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  you started working from home.

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  Legitimate remote jobs do not require that sort of thing.

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  The next thing is how to actually check to see

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  if you have found a suspicious job or company, whether

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  it's a scam or a real job.

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  And I mentioned before that most job words do not

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  pre screen the jobs and companies that are on their

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  site. They leave it up to the individual job seekers

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  to do that research themselves.

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  One of the things that we do it.

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  Flex jobs is pre screen every job and company before

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  it gets listed.

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  So we have a lot of experience going through scam

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  job listings and feeling out which are really, which are

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  fake and keeping job seekers safe.

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  So some of the things you can do it's actually

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  very simple to keep yourself safe in these early stages.

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  First of all, you just do a search online for

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  either the company's name or the job title that you

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  feel is suspicious and the key word scam and what

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  that's going to bring back our local news articles that

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  have been written where they have figured out that this

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  is a scam and the news has reported on it.

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  It might bring back better Business Bureau ratings or reports.

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  FBI warnings are also common, and it comes toe online

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  scams. And it will also bring back any message boards

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  where people have warned others that they have been scammed

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  by this particular job or company.

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  So it's really important to do that search.

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  It only takes a couple minutes, and you can keep

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  yourself safe that way.

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  The other thing, if you think you're dealing with a

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  copycat company where it seems like a well known companies

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  offering a work from home job, but they are actually

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  a fake company that's scam and is posing as that

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  real company.

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  Do a search for the rial company's name and the

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  keyword careers, and you can find their riel careers website.

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  You can compare the address that you were on that

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  seemed suspicious with the Web address of the Rial Careers

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  Page to see if they're the same.

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  If they're not the same, you have most likely found

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  a scam.

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  The last thing I'll say is surge on reputable sites.

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  There are so many job boards out there, it's hard

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  to know which ones to focus on a site like

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  Flex Jobs does pre screen all of the jobs and

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  companies before they're listed to make sure that everything is

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  above board that were only posting legitimate jobs and that

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  they are high quality and professional level remote jobs.

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  And we do a lot of work to keep jobseekers

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  safe. But whether you're searching on flex jobs or anywhere

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  else, do your research about the job boards that you're

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  on. See what their policies are, see how they do

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  different screening of their jobs and their companies.

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  And if they do any of that in order to

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  keep their job seekers safe, that's one of the biggest

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  things you can do.

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  To keep yourself safe is just search on job boards

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  that have good reputations and that you have researched to

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  make sure that they're doing a good job for their

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  job seekers.

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  That's all about job scams for today.

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  I wish you the best of luck in your remote

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  job search.