Enlarge / That sketchy speedy delivery gig you were offered by that company that you applied to work for? It’s probably a scam.
If you’re using a Web-based third-party recruiter site to look for and apply for jobs, you may want to keep a close eye on the e-mails you get in response. As Steve Ragan of CSO reports, scammers are harvesting information from recruiter sites to offer “flexible” jobs that are in fact criminal undertakings—often posing as executives from the companies where applicants have applied for jobs.
One woman who applied for a job at the paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams through the site of ZipRecruiter received an e-mail shortly afterward from someone posing as the CEO of the company. The person claimed that the position she had applied for was filled but offered another job as a “personal assistant” for the CEO himself for $500 a week.
“If you accept my offer, I will need you to take charge of my mails pick up and drop off as well as errand running during your spare time outside of work,” the e-mail read. “The job is flexible so you can do it wherever you are as long as there is a post office in the area. I will pay for the first week in advance to run errands, and will also have my mails/packages forwarded to a nearby post office where you can pick them from at your convenience.”