PSA: Fake Job Offer Scams
The Information Security Office has received several reports of fake job offer scams being sent to VCU.
This is a scam in which the scammer is posing as a company or someone who is offering a job. The scammer will offer the victim a job. The job will usually be about an assistant or a purchasing officer. The scammer will send the victim a check, the check will have the victim’s “paycheck” and more to pay a vendor.
Usually, the victim will deposit the check and send money to the vendor. After the bank does an audit on the check, usually 1-2 weeks, the bank will find that the check is fraudulent. The check will bounce and the money will be removed from the victim’s account, any money sent over to the vendor will still be removed from the victim’s account.
As such, please avoid and report all job offer scams to infosec@vcu.edu.
In order to determine, if one of these job offers is a scam, check the email address, is the email from the company they claim to represent? Does the email address match with whom the person state they are? Check linkedin and google for the person’s name, do they work at the company they claim to represent? Is the job offer too good to be true (is the payment extremely high for amount of work)?
Is the person offering an interview? Please be aware that almost all companies will require an interview in order for employment. Finally, if you are just unsure please send it to infosec@vcu.edu for further inspection.