Beware of fake job offers , internet scam

ISB:  The world famous Nigerian Advance fee fraud known as 419 Scam used to send emails or postal letters offering to move a billion of US dollar funds in the victim's account and pledged a huge chunk of share from that fund. Many people went behind the bars from across the world including Pakistan for being involved in this Scam but majority of them belonged to Nigeria and other African countries billion of  fake US currency , Bank letters , Stamps , Companies letterhead were recovered from the scammers. People from almost every country of the globe got affected and even some companies suffered a loss of huge amount. Australian institute of Criminology issued a detailed report about 419 Scam and disclosed that about 500 million US dollor's losses were suffered by 419 Victims were killed and kidnapped after being involved in this scam.

The exposure of 419 Scam did send a warning message to all the internet surgers but people continue to become prey of thus trap. With the passage of time the info tech is getting advanced and equally shrewd who come up with different schemes and programming offering lucrative incentives to innocent net users. Scammers have now launched a new fraud on internet by offering jobs in oil and other companies with every attractive salaries ranging fro US 44000 to 94000 with many other perks and priviledges like quality single or family housing accommodation , free medical care and insurance from entire family, excellent educational assistance benefits for all dependents , airfares with holiday travel,and excess baggage allowances , paid vacation , Official  vehicle , and many more gimmicks like these. Scammers mostly target the Asian countries including Pakistan as the unemployment ratio is rather very high  in these states and majority are living below the poverty line. The lower middle class wants to make progress overnight and hence they are always ready to take the financial risk involved in the offers of the scammers.

There are different types of scams some of them offer a guaranteed employment with a fixed time period against the deposit of a fee. What all these companies do is that these just distribute candidates resume to prospective employers, this is also known as CV or Resume :"Blasting" you pay money to have your details sent to worldwide employers who are hiring , but what the fraudsters do is that they SPAM hundreds or thousands of employers industry websites and online magazines with your details. Some recruiting companies offering a  money back guarantee as an incentive to use them but very few job seekers ever receive a refund.

Some time scammers advertise a job on the behalf of real company. A bogus telephone or by email interview  may take place and after some time you are informed that you are selected for that job. Now you need to secure the job they ask you to send money for your work visa or travel costs to the agent or a bogus travel agent who works on their behalf no matter what the variation they always invlve the job seeker sending them or their agent money , credit card or bank account details.

How to avoid these types of scams never give your personal bank account  PAYPAL account or credit card numbers never forward transfer or wire money to an employer.

Remember that a genune employer or agency will not ask for money for visa processing or travel costs . One may be required to provide your own airfares but you should do so through t travel agent in your area and which you know and trust. All the scams start by receiving the emails . Fraudsters use free email or web mail accounts such as hotamil yahoo or mail . excite etc but a genuine employers and agencies never use a free email services they all use their own domain name . To check a genuine email address or domain name by extracting the text after the sign add www::" as a prefix and text the address in your browser. If genuine it show the website of the company the person is supposed to belong to check for telephone and fax numbers and contact the company directly to ensure the person actually works for them. Always ask for phone , fax and office address details of the agency . You can easily check out through international directory inquiries or the local chamber of commerce websites.

In the history of internet frauds most famous frauds as Auction Fraud " Auction Fraud - Romania , Counterfeit  Cashier's Check , Credit Cards Fraud , Debt Elimination, DHL / UPS employment/ Business Opportunities, Escrow Services Fraud , Identity Theft, Internet Extortion , Investment Fraud, Lotteries, Nigerian Letter or 419 Phishing/Spoonfing , Ponzi/Pyramid, Reshipping, Spam, Third party Receiver of Funds..

To Avoid such kind of fraud there is need for awareness and information campaign on part of the government . There should be an official website to the government containing information details, updates of new trends , tips, and tricks regarding online scams and safety measures as to how the people protect themselves from these info frauds.