You already have a full time job, but, you need more money coming in, with inflation going up month after month and your salary staying the same, you have to look at options. Like most of us, you go on LinkedIn, and try to find the perfect side job. You are lucky, because you will find thousands of offers for remote jobs on LinkedIn. But be careful, you might find a lot of fake jobs in there as well.

We got contacted last week by a new client who was worry about a job offer he applied for on LinkedIn. It was for a remote job, nothing crazy, remote accounting from a mid size company located in Denver, Colorado. The job offer sounded legit, hourly pay, with benefits and he had toe possibility to “Easy Apply” with LinkedIn. After doing so, he got an email the next morning from the “HR” from that company requesting to fill an other application online on their website. 

He did fill the application, but lucky for him, didn’t fill the SSN and other personal information as, I suspect, the scammers didn’t made those fields required. After filling the application, he had to pay for the “Background and Credit Check” and, unfortunately, he added his card number and paid the $29.99 for the check. 

The application went thru, but he didn’t get any charge to his card at the time or email confirming that company got the application. This is when, he started worrying and did a LinkedIn search of that HR manager and to his surprise, didn’t find any LinkedIn profile to her name. What he found was a comment from someone else saying that this company was a scam and stole his personal information.

Our client contacted us to make sure he was safe and to know what he needed to do now. After reviewing what he did, and because he didn’t share in SSN at any point. (Not even for the background check, so again, a lucky “mistake” from the scammers) we told him to block his Credit Card and to get a new one. And definitely to be on the lookout for new emails or contact from suspicious person in the future. 

If our client would have shared his SSN, it would have been a totally other story.

What you should do if looking for a job online, is to do your due diligence, check the company name and website, check the Secretary of State Business Search to make sure that company is listed and make sure the website that you are visiting is legit. Also, if you find your dream job from LinkedIn, there is chance that this job is posted on their official website as well, so go back on it and look for Careers page (or similar) and try to find it directly. You should also report fake jobs directly to LinkedIn.

People are actively looking to work more to make more right now, so there is a lot more of fake jobs online. You have to be careful before sharing ANY personal information. 

We didn’t charge a dime to this new client, as it was a simple service we provided, but he wanted to pay us for our time, so we recommended him to get our “Is this a Scam?” service, like this, if he needs our help in the future for any other kind of scams he might find online, he knows we are going to be on his side to help him.