With the Great Resignation showing no signs of slowing down, Better Business Bureau® (BBB®) warns job seekers to use caution when job-hunting online. Employment scams are rampant online, and scammers’ tactics are evolving constantly. Employment scams ranked as the third-riskiest scam of 2021 in the annual BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report, with about 3,350 reports to BBB Scam Tracker last year. About 60 of those reports were filed in Eastern and Southwest Missouri and Southern Illinois. BBB published an in-depth investigative study on employment scams in 2020; read the study at BBB.org/scamstudies.
In employment scams, a consumer receives an unsolicited job offer that may promise high pay, options to work remotely, and/or flexible hours. To get the job, a candidate must complete forms that require personal and/or sensitive information and may be required to “purchase equipment” with part of the proceeds of what turns out to be a fake check. These open the candidate up to identity theft and financial harm.