The Job Scams Epidemic

Let’s examine job scams. What are they? In this blog post, we will examine the reasons behind this surge, dig a little deeper into the challenges job boards face, the scope of the problem, and how a Hybrid Content Moderation solution can help mitigate the risk.

Undoubtedly, the rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology fuelled increased productivity and efficiency on a global scale. On the flip side, though, as technology evolves rapidly, so do frauds.

A closer look at the data

The pandemic generated a record-high unemployment rate, with an ever-growing pool of applicants searching for new job opportunities. In the wake of COVID-19, Job scams rose to an unprecedented rate, with Americans losing a whopping $68 million to fraudulent job offers in the first quarter of 2022, according to a report issued by CNBC.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) states that Job frauds tripled over the last three years, while a study published by Better Business Bureau (BBB) revealed that 14 million victims fell prey to job scams in 2022, with financial losses amounting to $2 billion.

Breaking down the anatomy of job scams

Scams have existed for a long time. They take various forms and can equally affect big corporations and less tech-savvy individuals. In fact, scammers have also targeted high-profile corporations, with Google and Facebook losing more than $100 million to business email compromise (BEC) frauds.

The turbulent job landscape is being exploited by fraudsters, who employ various deceitful tactics to defraud victims and steal or sell the data to the dark web. Scraping is a method fraudsters use to obtain personally identifiable information (PII) to create fake passports, driving licenses, or even new bank accounts.

Scammers pose as legitimate employers in popular job boards using a variety of sophisticated scam schemes, ranging from cloned company websites to spear phishing attacks that spread malware, which is then used to commit identity fraud or extract large sums of money.

Fake job listings on social media

Besides job boards, fraudsters share fake job offers on popular and trustworthy social media networks, capitalizing on the fact that 59% of the population uses social media and spends, on average, 2 hours and 29 minutes daily on social networks.

Let’s take a look at how this affects companies of all sizes.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn boasts more than 700 million users across the globe, but so does the potential for fake job ads. Alarmingly, over half of a billion LinkedIn users have been targeted by fraudsters through scraping. This method is used by fraudsters to gain access to publicly viewable data such as:

• job titles
• emails
• former colleagues
• accolades
• names
• phone numbers

This data is then sold to hackers for phishing scams.

They can also use PDF attachments for the job descriptions through links that contain malware.

Another technique recently used on LinkedIn is online fraud impersonation. Fraudsters use spoofing, a method of stealing companies’ logos and hiding their actual webmail accounts.

“You appeared in [number] searches this week” is a common LinkedIn phishing technique designed to steal users’ login credentials through fake LinkedIn landing pages.

A 232% spike in email phishing attacks that impersonate LinkedIn has been reported since February 2022.

Twitter

Twitter is another social media platform not immune to fake job offers. Scammers use shortened URL links (e.g., bitly), which lead users outside of the platform to unverified web pages.

The bottom line is that fake accounts can be created quite easily, from either real or fake accounts, and social media platforms still struggle to verify user profiles that appear legitimate but are, in fact, populated with fake connections.

Content moderation matters

In-house moderation often lacks the technological know-how and expertise to detect fake job listings, cloned company websites, or URLs, among other phishing methods.

To successfully mitigate the ever-increasing risk of scams, job platforms need a highly- sophisticated hybrid moderation solution powered by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and human workforce.

At Besedo, we pride ourselves on adapting to your platform’s moderation needs and goals. Our filter specialists are committed to supporting you in creating customized rules and filters that align with your platform’s specific guidelines.

Implio is the ultimate Hybrid solution, which will automate the bulk volume of fake job listings and flag any other questionable listings that require manual review. Besedo offers a pool of highly-trained and experienced moderators who will work as an extension of your in-house team, saving time and freeing up resources.

Besedo’s offering is unique because it leverages AI and human intelligence to protect your job platform from fraudulent listings and identify fake employer profiles, spoofed company websites, trojan horse attacks, and malicious links in real-time.

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