People who are unemployed and desperate to find work can least afford to lose their money. But these are the very people who are targeted by scams involving upfront payment for the promise of work. Here are some to watch out for.
Make Big Profits Working at Home!
Big profits are highly unlikely. Ads like these are designed to rope people into low-paying work like stuffing envelopes or turning out cheap handicraft products. Or they may ask you to pay in advance for working materials. When they arrive, you find you paid much more than the materials are worth.
We Have a Job for You!
Beware of calls from so-called employment agencies telling you they have been asked by an employer to "screen" you for a particular job. After getting you to pay a hefty administration fee, they send you to see someone who has no work to offer and has never heard of the agency. They then point to fine print in their contract, which says jobs aren’t, after all, guaranteed. In other cases, the offer of a non-existent job is used as bait to get you into their offices. Once there, you are pressured to sign up for job-finding services. Payment in advance, of course.
Come Fly With Us!
You have to be extra careful about newspaper ads promising jobs in foreign countries. In one popular scam, you’re invited for an interview – likely in a hotel suite or rented office – by individuals posing as foreign employers or their agents. You’re told you’ve won the job and all you have to do is pay a few hundred dollars for visas and other paper work. The phoney employer pockets the money and disappears.
In another version of the scam, ads ask you to send money for an "information package" guaranteed to get you a foreign job. When you get the package, it may contain nothing more than a list of companies taken from an old phone book and perhaps some instructions on preparing a resume. You can get better information free of charge from a foreign trade mission or a good library.
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