Money scammers have found a new lucrative home – the job and internship seeker. Throughout the past academic year alone, thousands of fraudulent job offers and part-time employment scams have targeted the Swarthmore student community. With increasingly sophisticated and effective methods of outreach (including posing as legitimate employers and real people who work there), it’s easy to get caught up in a scheme.
Using an actual example of a recent scamming attempt, we’ll show you exactly what to look for so that you can tell the difference between exciting legitimate opportunities and those that are not.
Red Flags of a Job Offer or Employment Scam
- Job duties that include purchasing gift cards.
- Requests to correspond using an alternate email address, your personal email address, WhatsApp or text messages.
- Invited to interview for (or just straight up offered a position) for something you don’t remember applying for.
- URL domains other than .com, .edu, .org or an country’s government domain (such as .gov for the US federal government)
- Job offer emails from @gmail.com accounts. Legitimate organizations will send messages from their employer accounts. When receiving about an opportunity, be sure that the email address matches the naming convention of the target organization. Similarly, increasingly messages will refer to finding candidates on Handshake, but employers on that platform will message potential candidates through the platform itself, not via gmail separately.
- Pressure to act quickly or face consequences.
- Interviews conducted solely via text message or Zoom chat.
- Restricting communication with the employer (i.e. only they will reach out to you/instructing you to not initiate communication)
- Requests to send money or purchase gift cards with your own money, even if there is discussion of reimbursement. Scams exist where an employer will ask to deposit money into your account (so that it seems like Direct Deposit – which is a legitimate way that many people receive their paychecks) just so that they can get your account information. A scammer may also have an “employee” set up an account on their “app” to receive payments.
- Incorrect or awkward phrasing and grammar, misspellings or typos.
- Various subject lines but the same content.
- While there are many legitimate and great opportunities to work remotely, unfortunately many scammers utilize “remote” and “work from home” to grab student’s attention.
Image examples of what this can look like pointing out some of the red flags (click to view them):
Tips to avoid employment offer scams
- Adjust your Linkedin profile so that your personal email address is only visible to you. Increasingly, scammers may target individuals by pretending to be an actual person from the organization that you may recognize. Once you accept the connection request, they collect personal contact information and target your email directly.
- For all social media accounts, only connect with folks that you actually know or that you have a mutual and trusted person in common.
- Configure your Linkedin profile to NOT automatically share a personal email address with folks you connect with.
- Be aware of the scams that Swarthmore’s ITS have listed here: swarthmore.edu/studentscams
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If you receive something that seems off to you, Career Services is happy to check the validity of something for you. . You’re welcome to what appears to be a scam email, even if you’re not totally sure, please send them to phishing@swarthmore.edu. This not only helps us detect new variations but helps to protect all Swarthmore students. You can also check the legitimacy of an email with Career Services at career@swarthmore.edu.
Dear students,
I hope your semester is going well!!
Throughout this academic year, thousands of fraudulent job offers and part-time employment scams have targeted the Swarthmore student community. Many, but not all, originate from free email providers like Gmail. While we’re able to detect and reject the vast majority of these, some do manage to get through due to scammers’ non-stop evasion efforts. The primary goal of these scams is to defraud you out of money. To help you recognize the content of these scam emails and the many variations, you can visit https://swarthmore.edu/StudentScams to see up to date samples.
Here are a few indicators that a part time job “offer” is actually a scam:
– the sender asks for (and prefers to use) your personal or non-Swarthmore email address, WhatsApp or mobile phone texting
– you are asked to buy gift cards of any type
– they send you a “payment” then ask you to deduct “your fees” and return the remaining amount
Note that scammers have also set up fake Swarthmore student Profiles on LinkedIn. If you unknowingly connect to a fake profile, the scammer may be able to obtain your personal email address (depending on your settings for “Who can see or download your email address”) and contact you directly, outside of the College’s protection. Before connecting with a Profile on LinkedIn, you should be sure it is someone you actually know and not someone simply claiming to be a Swarthmore student. Or, set your LinkedIn Email address visibility to ‘Only visible to me’.
The following scammer email addresses (attempting to spoof legitimate Swarthmore email addresses) are known to have used LinkedIn to scam students via their personal email:
kdimitr1.swarthmore.edu@gmail.com
jpeck1.swarthmore.edu@gmail.com
Please remain vigilant and be extra suspicious of any part-time job or similar “opportunity” emails that may make their way to your Inbox. The volume of these scam emails tends to increase at the beginning of each semester and before extended breaks. In one 48 hour period, Swathmore’s filters caught over 2000 scam jobs.
As always, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you do receive what appears to be a scam email, even if you’re not totally sure, please send them to phishing@swarthmore.edu. This not only helps us detect new variations but helps to protect all Swarthmore students. You can also check the legitimacy of an email with Career Services at career@swarthmore.edu.
I also want to offer my unending gratitude to those of you who have forwarded these emails in the past. They’ve been a tremendous help!
More information and safety tips from Swarthmore’s ITS Office
