Fake job ads: what you can do about job scams

Have you ever been scammed? I and many others have – just last week. Check out this common fake job ad scam and what small businesses and individuals can do about this.

What are false job advertisements?

Sadly, fake jobs are very common. There are a few types of false ads, for example:

1. Ads posted by a real company for a role that doesn’t exist, simply to “test the market”. This could help employers check how good the quality of job seekers is for certain roles. They may also plan to keep CVs for later use or even add them to mailing lists. (This is, of course, against GDPR but hard to prove.)
   
2. External ads placed by a real company to create the illusion of a fair job application process, even if the role will go to someone else internally. (Again, hard to prove.)
   
3. Ads by scammers who may want to commit identity fraud, advanced fee fraud, or a mailing list scam with the CVs they receive. To seem legitimate, they may copy and use a reputable company’s name to do this.

Number 3, sadly, happened to me. Someone copied my company name (“Translate Digital Marketing Ltd”) and, using their own contact details, set up a business page on Indeed UK to post a fake job ad for translators. No hacking was involved. Often, it only takes a mobile phone number to create a fake ad. 😧

How I found out about “my” fake job ad

I received a couple of job applications directly in my company’s inbox last week. I don’t look for employees and never advertise, but I still get the odd application from a hopeful job seeker here and there. 

Receiving two applications in one day, however, was strange. One of them mentioned a job posting on Indeed UK, so I immediately checked – and, yes, there was a fake job ad using my business name. 

My stomach dropped.

I reported the fake ad and Indeed UK pulled it. I then reported the scam on a translators’ professional website (Proz.com) and on my social media channels, where I asked for more advice on what I should do next.

What the fake advertisement looked like

Thankfully, it’s now been taken down, but the ad looked for “people who can translate texts from spain [sic], french, german, italian, russian to english. We have over 250 documents to translate each day.”  [Spot the poor spelling and grammar – a red flag! 🚩]

It was a 100% remote position, and the company pretended to be based in London, advertising under my exact company name. 

The pay was not terrible as cheap agency jobs go, so many applicants would have found this fake job posting attractive given the current job market.

Multiple fake job ads in different countries

Since then, I realised the same false ad had been running on a few other online job portals, too. For example, I found fake job postings on Groove Career, News Now, Emprego, and Fidanto.

The ad was no longer running on Groove Career. Their contact form isn’t working either, so I can’t contact them.

I managed to report the ad and got it removed from the other sites. They often automatically pull through from a central database, so removing it from one can take it down elsewhere.

I asked Indeed, News Now, Emprego, and Fidanto to explain how someone could set up a fake business profile using my business name so easily, with no verification attempt to my real business email address via my website. 

Responses so far

• Indeed UK provisionally replied, saying they had put “preventative measures” in place to avoid this happening in the future. It’s not clear to me if they have put these measures in place only on the business profile I’ve now claimed for myself on Indeed, and what exactly these measures involve. I’m also still waiting for further information from Indeed about how long this fake ad was active, how many job applications it received, and whether the personal data of jobseekers is safe.
  
  [Update, 15/9/22: Indeed confirmed they had followed all internal procedures to investigate and remove the fraudulent posting, and that there had been “no indication of a data breach”. To get more answers (e.g. on how many CVs were received), I will have to report the case to Interpol as Indeed’s headquarters are based in the EU. I was also asked to request in writing to Indeed that only email addresses associated with my domain should be able to post jobs under my company name, which I’ve done.]
  
  
• News Now responded courteously, pulling the ad and admitting it’s very easy to place fraudulent job ads online. In their case, the ad had just been pulled through from a central database.
  
• I have had no response from the other job boards mentioned above (Emprego, Fidanto), though they removed the ads.
  

What to do about fake job ads

Tips for business owners whose company name was misused:

1. Search for your business name on Google and see where and when the fake job ad was run.
   
2. Check whether the business is, in fact, legit (perhaps they are trading under the same name?)
   In my case, it was very clear they weren’t. For example, there’s only one ‘Translate Digital Marketing Ltd’ in the UK’s Companies House directory (mine).
   
3. Email the job board and report the ad as fake. You often can flag up fake ads directly on the job advert pages – do this, too. Tagging job boards on social media may give you a faster response than relying on email only. For example, Indeed has a support page on Twitter.
   
   [Update, 15/9/22: Also, confirm in writing to the relevant job portal that only email accounts associated with your own, authorised domain may post jobs or add content under your company name.]
   
4. Report the fraud to JobsAware and Action Fraud (in the UK). If you’re in a different country, check your national fraud agencies or relevant charities. I was surprised to learn that what I reported to Action Fraud wasn’t a “legal matter”. You can, however, file a report with them. They’ll look into your case to see how they could help you, and you can also cite their report reference number when you ask job portals to take down the fake ad.
   
5. If you think there may have been a data breach, report this also to the ICO (UK), or your national information commissioner’s office.
   
6. Follow up if you don’t get replies.
   
7. Set up a Google alert for your business name, so if new ads should start, you are aware.

Tips for job seekers affected by a job scam

1. Follow the same tips as steps 2-6 above.
   
2. Always apply directly to companies if you can. Avoid online job portals in your job search, especially if:
   • the ad is poorly written and/or badly spelled, 
   • there are no reviews or full details about the company, and/or
   • the job seems to be too good to be true.
     
3. Never give any money to the company. Don’t pay advance fees or money for “online training” or “office equipment”. Jobseekers should never have to do that, even after the hiring process.
   
4. Even if the company exists in real life (like mine), double-check whether “their” ad makes sense. My tiny company only provides English and German translation and content writing services. The ad asked for many language combinations, so that could be a red flag. Also, my business is not in London (as the scammer’s company pretended to be), and the ad was written in poor English.

Let’s fight back against job scams and fake ads

This has been very upsetting for me as well as for the applicants, so I’m hoping to raise awareness of this scam nationally together with JobsAware. The government really will have to do something to 

a) regulate online job portals, and 

b) make fake job adverts like these much, much harder to pull off – if not impossible. 

Here’s hoping the government’s new Online Safety Bill will tackle this problem.

PS. Check out this A-Z of fraud, so you’re aware of other current scams. There are far too many. They’re not only aimed at jobseekers or companies, either!