Job Seekers should be on the lookout for a job scammer on local classifieds websites. There is a trend going around. This scammer has been making money off innocent job seekers. He creates hundreds of fake e-mail addresses and uses them to place adverts for non-existing jobs.
When a job seeker replies to one of these addresses, they receive 10 e-mails from non-existing recruiters prompting them to fax their documents and certificates to a given 0866 fax number. This scammer has been around for the last 7 years and he is still creating new addresses and fake recruiter names every week. One of our employees browsed one of our competitor’s classifieds websites and there were tons of fake adverts posted by this scammer. Our employee tested a couple of them and within minutes he received the same e-mails from many different “recruiters”. None of them offered direct contact details (only a 0866 fax number). There are also other job blogs complaining about the same scammer. We have noticed that the con artists scamming approach is still the same and he never seems to get caught.
We reported this to the competitor. Eventually they blocked the “sender”, but because he is using such a lot of different addresses, he can get away with it every time. The scammer just switches between sets of free e-mail addresses and places his fake ads in all the cities, small towns, from Putsonderwater to Lichtenburg – name a place, and you will find one of his scam ads there!
The following e-mail addresses are involved in this scam:
hr-staff@websurfer.co.za
consultants@workmail.co.za
ecrecruiters@homemail.co.za
dreamjobs@mailbox.co.za
careerchoice@ravemail.co.za
employment@therugby.co.za
workinc@exclusivemail.co.za
perfectjobs@thepub.co.za
directcv@magicmail.co.za
hrplacements@therugby.co.za
permapeople@webmail.co.za
recruitdept@websurfer.co.za
exclusiveads@therugby.co.za
tech@mailbox.co.za
skycv@magicmail.co.za
plan@starmail.co.za
hr-careers@homemail.co.za
staff202@therugby.co.za
ecpersonnel@executivemail.co.za
The scammer previously used a group of addresses which were verified on whois.co.za as belonging to the same person and having the same contact telephone number. He must have caught wind of being tailed, as he deleted and discontinued that group of e-mail addies and cleverly started using new ones.
Job Seekers reading this post should not get caught by this scam. We have warned Job Seekers on the Job Mail blog about the new Fax Ploy. This scam works almost the same. If you encounter a recruiter that is only using a 086 Fax Number as contact details, please report them to our Job Mail Consultant via e-mail at rosep@jobmail.co.za or telephonically on 012-3423840 x2620 (during office hours)