LinkedIn Job Scam Dupes Man In Stafford: Police

STAFFORD, VA—A Stafford man was conned out of more than $5,000 last week after falling victim to a familiar but nonetheless disturbing LinkedIn employment scam from his home in the 200 block of Hemlock Drive, according to the Stafford County Sheriff's Office.

On Feb. 22, the man told police had had been contacted by a representative of a company called "Shoppers, Inc" through LinkedIn, a business and employment website. He was told he was being offered a job, and that he soon would be receiving a package with instructions

When the package arrived, it contained two checks for $2,950 apiece. He was told to deposit the checks, purchase Apple gift cards for $5,400, take photos of the cards and send them to the company. He followed the instructions but later was contacted by his bank advising him the checks were bogus. Alas for him, the gift cards already had been redeemed, and he contacted police.

The Better Business Bureau has tips regarding the LinkedIn scam:

How the Scam Works:
You get a LinkedIn message asking you to apply for a job. It comes from someone who appears to be a recruiter. You check out their LinkedIn profile, and it looks real. You may even have several connections in common!

From here, the scam works in a couple of different ways. Sometimes, the message contains a link that appears to point to an online job application. You are supposed to upload your resume and provide personal information, anything from your address to Social Security/Social Insurance number. Other times, you respond to the message and are "hired" for the job. Then, you are asked to pay upfront for training and/or others expenses.

No matter the details of the scam, the job never materializes. The scammer takes the money or information and disappears. Victims who share person details are at risk for identity theft. Here are some tips for dealing with job scams on LinkedIn.

• Set your LinkedIn privacy settings. You can limit which LinkedIn users can send you messages or connection requests. Go here to make adjustments.
• Don't accept every request you get. Check out the user's profile for completeness and correct grammar. Just because you have several connections in common, does not mean they are real. Scammers frequently create a large network to look more legitimate.
• If a recruiter contacts you through email, ask to speak by phone. Scammers will try to dodge this with excuses, such as being out the country.

Read more about scams on LinkedIn's blog.

Also from the BBB are 10 ways to recognize a job scam:

1. Job offers from strangers. If someone offers you a job without getting an application from you first, meeting you, or doing an interview, it’s a scam.
2. High pay for simple work. Be wary if ads, emails, or callers promise to pay a lot of money for jobs that don’t seem to require much effort, skill, or experience. Usually such offers turn out to be a scam.
3. Requests for money. If someone wants you to pay a fee or buy something to get work, stop. This is a sure sign of a scam. Once you’ve paid, the scammer disappears and so does your money.

• Criminals may ask you to pay money to cover application or enrollment fees, employment screening fees, purchase of materials or office supplies, shipping costs, training fees, and so on.
• If you wire a payment to somebody, it may not be possible to get your money back. Scammers may also ask you to purchase gift cards and provide the card’s code numbers or request other forms of payment that are quick and hard to recover, such as payment apps.

4. Requests for personal identity or financial information. Be very suspicious if an unfamiliar “employer” or recruiter asks for your Social Security number, birth date, bank account number, or other private information that could be used to steal your identity.

• An employer should never request your Social Security number prior to an interview. It is common for job scammers to try to get this critical information when pretending to hire the victim. Don’t give such details to anyone you have not investigated first or whom you have not met.
• If you have not met the employer in person, do not agree to a background check, which could put you at risk of identity theft.

5. Fake checks. Some scammers send checks to cover the supposed cost of doing a job, with a portion to be used as payment to the worker. This is a technique often called an “overpayment” scam.

• The fake check may look real and appears to clear at first, but soon it bounces – typically after the victim has spent a lot of money to benefit the scammer.
• Even cashier’s checks and money orders can be faked by scammers, so beware of checks that are sent by unfamiliar people. Job scam victims can lose thousands due to fake checks.

6. High pressure to act now. Reject anybody who pushes you hard to accept an unsolicited offer of work, or who pressures you to take other actions that seem unusual, for the sake of a job. High pressure is always a sign that something is wrong.
7. Long-distance employer. Many job scams involve opportunities that seem to come from an employer located in another country or a distant state. Watch out! Scammers use this as an excuse to hide their identities. If the employer lists only a P.O. Box and does not provide a local street address, be wary: this is also a way of hiding that the scammer may be in a remote location. However, be aware that there are also cases where bold scammers open temporary offices and conduct in-person interviews – and then vanish, after taking your money or identity information.
8. Suspicious emails. All unsolicited emails bearing job offers should be viewed with suspicion. If you receive a job offer in an email that comes from a free email service, such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo, it is very likely to be a scam. Most real employers will use an email address related to their company’s website address. Bear in mind that it is also easy for scammers to imitate an email address from a legitimate company.
9. Fake websites. If the company making the job offer has a website, check to see when the website was established. You can do this by entering the website address in a “WHOIS” lookup site.

• If the website was established only recently, contains many language errors, or doesn’t work properly, it could be a scam.
• If contact information for a physical street address for the business is missing or does not make sense, be cautious: a cellphone number and email address are not sufficient.
• Don’t click on links that someone sends you to verify a company’s identity. Instead, search the web on your own with the company name and check location addresses online to see if they match the business.

10. Ask the BBB! It only takes minutes to check a company’s record with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) at www.bbb.org and you can even search scam reports using BBB’s Scam Tracker at www.bbb.org/scamtracker/us. Also, you can call your local BBB office if you want help figuring out whether you are looking at a scam.