Fake job rackets have become a booming industry, thanks to shrinking jobs in private as well as public sector and hordes of students passing out of low-quality professional colleges. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, India’s unemployment rate in April 2019 shot up to 7.6%, the highest since October 2016. Combined with easy accessibility of the Internet, this has come as a boon for job scammers, who are offering non-existent jobs to desperate youth. “Students fresh out of colllege, from one of the thousands of engineering colleges in small towns, are easily trapped. Their parents have invested Rs 4-5 lakh and now want the kids to earn big money. Foreign jobs, especially in the Gulf, are coveted,” says Bilal Hasan, Head of Sales, Quetzal & Head Honchos.
Little wonder then that embassies, companies and job portals have started putting up advisories on their websites to warn the applicants. On 28 April, the Indian embassy in Qatar tweeted: ‘Please do not trust any recruiting agent who promises you a job in Qatar on a business/visit visa. Always ask for a copy of the agent’s Qatar ID.’ Groups such as Tata Consultancy Services, Shell and Monster.com have also put up warnings on their sites. If you are also looking for jobs, here’s how to avoid being duped by scamsters.
Modus operandi: Steps
For most scamsters, online job portals are a popular haunt to find prey. Here’s how they proceed:
1. Applicant profiles accessed from job recruitment sites.
2. Mass mailers sent to potential candidates.
3. Fraudsters pose as job consultants, set up fake websites, temporary ‘offices’.
4. Candidates are asked to deposit registration fees via wallet or bank transfers.
5. Online or telephonic interviews are conducted.
6. Fake appointment letters are offered.
Victim profile
These are the type of people who are most likely to fall prey to job scams:
- Mostly from tier 2 or tier 3 cities
- Graduate from lesser known colleges or institutes
- Poor interpersonal communication skills
- 0-5 year work experience
- In their early to mid-20s
- Not good at written or spoken English
- Not very skilled at their jobs; low professional expertise
- Have applied on job portal
Modus Operandi: Approaches
Scammers adopt different approaches to find and nail their prey.