Due to some strange circumstances which I won’t go into here, I found myself searching for employment. Not only are jobs hard to come by, but there are also a plethora of jobs that aren’t even jobs.
Unfortunately, I discovered this the hard way.
Here are some job listings to avoid and why:
1. Those “Make $450 a Day From Home” ads are a joke. First of all, if people could make money from home, everyone would be doing just that. These scams often charge anywhere from $19.95 and upwards for “software,” “training,” “membership fees” or some other such notion. The purpose of the employer is to pay the employee, not the other way around. Never pay anyone for the privilege of working for them, even it is in the guise of purchasing the software to do so. Any legitimate work-from-home job offer will supply what you need, if anything. Most legitimate telecommute job offers will be listed on company website anyway.
2. Beware of buzzgrub, monkeyjar and similar job ad listings. These appear to be legitimate job listings. But when you click on the “Apply Now” button, you are transferred to another Web site. It appears legitimate at first glance. However, across the top of the page is a bar, sometimes in various shades of blue, with words like “RealTime.com” or “ImportantCareers.com.” You fill out the information and upload your resume. But at the bottom of the page, you are asked if you are interested in continuing your education. If you click on the “yes” box and then click continue, you are taken to another page where you are asked about your interests.
This entire process serves a dual purpose. One is the opportunity to clog up your e-mail address with spam. Spam to my own e-mail address increased about 10 percent after I filled out the first form. The other purpose is to get your mailing address. This is further used for a bogus check scam. And it is not a legitimate job.
3. Also be wary of those employment agencies which charge you to sign up with them. Job searching should not be a cost to the applicant. We are the ones looking for a job and out of money. Signing up with one of those can cost you a lot more than what they charge you as well. I signed up with one for only $1 (it was a “special” rate). This scam was using the Google name, but is not associated with Google (something I did not know at the time). The next thing I knew, my card was charged a sum of $80 for some dental whitening stuff I didn’t even order. I had not put anything on my card for a few months and this was the only place my card information could have been accessed.
Once the charge appeared, I investigated the company. They had several complaints lodged against them for charging people for this whitening stuff they didn’t order. One poor woman got charged by them twice in one day. Varimi, LLC is the company guilty of this. If it is even a real company.
Use caution when you conduct a job search. Keep in mind that the job search engines aren’t all that concerned with the legitimacy of the job ads posted, so long as they are paid for. In the case of those “work-from-home” jobs, it is ultimately your money which pays for those ads if you actually purchase that software, training program, or membership.
Legitimate job offers will be the ones which include their company name and contact information in the ad. And they will never ask you for your personal information, either. This is also why it is a good idea to not include your contact information on your resume. Scam searchers can pull that information from there as well.
Scammers are always on the lookout for schmucks like myself. Don’t be one of them.
