People in Louisiana Looking for Work, Here’s How Not to Get Scammed

One of the toughest things to do is to land a job when you are unemployed. Equally exhausting and stressful is looking for a job when you are desperate to leave your current employer.

This is a situation for so many people, but while you are on your search to find that new perfect job, you need to be careful to avoid people who are looking to scam you out of your money, your identity, and your peace of mind.

Your excitement about a new prospective job may have you letting your guard down, but if anyone is asking you for gift cards to be sent to them because you have to buy your work equipment, that's just one of several huge red flags according to the Better Business Bureau of Acadiana.

Beware If You Are Asked to Pay to Reformat Your Resume

Chris Babin, the President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Acadiana, says one of the scams they have been learning is being perpetrated in our area via their ScamTracker tool is scammers asking you to pay to have your resume reformatted so your prospective company's applicant tracking system.

Scammers will contact you saying they found your resume via LinkedIn or another site, and that you are a good fit for the position. they then tell you your resume has been reformated.

They will send you to a website that asks for a whole load of personal information and charges you for "reformatting" your resume. It's a scam.

Research to Make Sure the Company Is Real

For young people ages 18 to 34, the most common type of scam to be perpetrated on you is for a job that doesn't even exist.

Officials at the BBB remind you that no matter what site you go to for a job, you have to be extremely careful that it's the true, legitimate site for that company.

Fraudsters can lure people onto their fake websites just by changing a few numbers or letters so it looks legitimate but is not. This is how they can get you to turn over your personal information.

You Should Never Have to Pay for a Job

If you are interested in a job online you need to make sure the company and offer are real. Do your research.

If you interview and are hired, but then you are asked to pay "for training" you are not dealing with a reputable company.

It's a good idea to ask this question of prospective employers, "Will I have to pay for training"?

Have You Checked Out the Email of the Prospective Employer

It's very important to make sure that when you are corresponding with someone about a job the email they are using is truly connected to the company they claim to represent.

Scammers will often advertise for jobs that don't exist or jobs that require you to pay for things like training.

After you have checked out the prospective employer you should also make sure the email the person you are corresponding with is legitimate making contacting the company outside of the website and telephone number the person has given you.

Most legitimate companies will not be using email from sites like Yahoo or Gmail.

If something like this has happened to you, the police ask that you contact them, and you can also report the information to the Scam Tracker on the BBB's website. You can also use the Scam Tracker to see what kinds of scams are active in your area.

Here is a real-life situation that the BBB has gathered:

For Donald from Lake Placid, Florida, it started with an email. A woman calling herself Laura Hoffman said she worked for a company called International and wanted to offer him a reshipping job. All Donald needed to do was purchase and send computers overseas. The pay would be $76,000 with bonuses.  

Donald wanted to test the offer's legitimacy, so he bought a single Apple computer and sent it to an address in Hong Kong. He eagerly awaited the reimbursement on his credit card, and, to his surprise, it came through quickly. After that, he threw himself into the job, buying and shipping over $100,000 computers. 

Things were going exceptionally well until one day, in late January, the payments on his card disappeared. They were fraudulent, his bank said, and Donald immediately owed the total balance on his cards. He frantically reached out to Laura Hoffman and Also International, but they were nowhere to be found. Donald had been scammed out of $105,000. He still hasn’t been able to resolve the issue with his bank.