A retired interior designer in Airdrie, Alta., is concerned that her personal information is at risk after she applied to a job online that turned out to be a scam.
Last month, Patti Holmes says she received an email for what she calls a legitimate-looking job posting seeking an interior designer, and that it came from a reputable job search website.
“This company said they found me (on a job search website) and they feel I would be a good candidate for this position they’re posting,” she said.
Holmes says nothing seemed out of place during the application process.
It wasn’t until the alleged company was setting up the interview that she began to get a little suspicious, especially when they told her that they’d call her within a three-hour window.
“I thought if this was HR, they pretty much would pick a time and say are you available at this time. But it was a three-hour period, so I got all my notes ready, got all my information and waited. Three hours go by, no phone call.”
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She says when no one called for the second scheduled interview, that’s when she called the company directly and got the bad news.
“She says, ‘I’m really sorry, but there is no such person that works here and we are not posting for a job,’” says Holmes.
Experts call these job or employment scams.
According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, more than $700 million was lost to fraud just last year.
“Job and employment scams actually came in at the fourth place with I believe over $15 million dollars in reported losses,” says Fraud Prevention Educator Julie Matthews. “But only five to 10 per cent of scams are reported, so the true loss job scams are much higher.”
Matthews says these criminals aren’t just after your money, but your identity, too.
She recommends that job searchers do their homework before clicking send on any job application. This includes contacting the employer and asking questions such as whether the posting is legit and if they can confirm some of the information on the posting.
“With many scams, including job scams, the fraudsters will use legitimate companies, legitimate identities to try and be more convincing and with employment scams it’s no different, so they will tend to impersonate well-known website platforms … to make themselves look more legitimate,” says Matthews.
Crime Prevention Sgt. Nick Wilshire with the Calgary Police Service say scam investigations including job scams are often complex and can be lengthy.
“A lot of these scams are international because it’s dealing with organized crime, that kind of big stings we need other police services across the world.”
Holmes still plans to continue her job search and return to her career in interior design.
“I would like to do it again, but it’s going to be tough to go out looking now wondering if this is legit,” she says.
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