Job Seeker and Employment Fraud are on the Rise

By Vicki Steere, Executive Director, Global Talent Acquistion Marketing

1/29/2021

Sadly, it’s true... job scams are on the rise.

Fraudsters, tricksters, nefarious cybercriminals… no matter what you call them, they are out to take advantage of good, upstanding people who are simply at the wrong place at the wrong time or in vulnerable times of their lives… like looking for a new job. And yes, these cybercriminals have been using TTEC’s positive employment reputation as one of the world’s most prominent employers of customer experience professionals, especially for work from home and remote opportunities to scam people seeking new jobs. There are dozens of ways that they will attempt to trick jobseekers into revealing personal information, gaining access to accounts, or flat out stealing. As a company that believes that our greatest asset is our people, we are outraged that our company would ever be used to defraud our candidates.

Please know that TTEC values everyone that applies with us and is interested in employment. We are doing everything in our power to protect our job seekers.

While these cybercriminals get even more creative every day, here are just a few ways that they may attempt to draw you in. Know that TTEC would never do these things and that you know that it is not a real representation of TTEC:

Fake ads – If it feels too good be true, it probably it. TTEC is not hiring data entry people at inflated wages that are well above market. We do, however, have legitimate customer service and other roles globally that you can find at www.TTECjobs.com.
Email address of sender – While some smaller employers might use @gmail or other public email accounts, all correspondence that you received from TTEC will be from either @ttec.com or @teletech.com. Yes, we have seen some pretty creative ones where they actually purchase a domain name is close like @ttecrecruiter.com.
Direct Message or Email from a social feed – Maybe you’ve joined a local Facebook group talking about jobs and commented. Some cybercriminals might ask you to take the conversation offline, pretending to be TTEC and ask you to direct message them to start a conversation. If you’re not sure, you can direct message TTEC at one of our Facebook pages such as @TTECusa.
Interview via text or GoogleHangouts – In today’s world, we do use video conferencing on Zoom to conduct interviews, but you will speak with the recruiter and the invite to interview will either be via phone, text or an @ttec.com or @teletech.com email address, but the actual interview will be with one our recruiters.
Offer of employment before the interview – TTEC will not send you an offer of employment without you having spoken with a recruiter. And again, the offer of employment will come from an @ttec.com or @teletech.com email.
Ask for you to send money – TTEC will not ask you to send us money (or gift cards) under any circumstances. With work from home on the rise, there may be circumstances where you will be working on your own equipment, but you use what you have if it meets our standards or secure what you may choose to at any reputable retailer.
Offer to send you a check – Opposite of above, TTEC will not offer to send you a check to be deposited in your back account before you earn a paycheck with us. This type of cybercrime if attempted to gain access to your bank account and what’s really suspicious is that check will be in a completely different company’s name.
Ask for you to share personal information like SSN, birth date, or bank account, passwords before you ever speak to a recruiter or have a legitimate offer of employment. Yes, we will eventually need some basic information in order to onboard you and pay you, but certainly not before you have accepted a legitimate job offer.
Have a prominent company executive contact you first – We have a large recruitment team. Our CEO, CFO or other prominent executives won’t be your first contact. If you’re not sure, check them out on LinkedIn.

Whew! This is a long list of ways that we know that these cybercriminals have been using our name to try and cheat you. And unfortunately, the list is getting longer. If you have been subject to any of these, please note that we do want to know so that we can stamp out those and protect others from being drawn in.

What are your next steps:

Report the incident to TTEC. This provides us enough details to try and track down the source. - REPORT TO TTEC
Report the incident to your local law enforcement.
If you provided your bank account information or deposited a check, notify your bank and maybe even close the account.
Consider putting a fraud alert with the credit agencies or purchasing a personal identity protection service.
If you were contacted through a career website, an online classified ad, or social media platform, make a report to that organization.
And then, in the USA, also report it to the FBI, FTC and the Cyber Crime Complaint Center. For all other countries in which TTEC does business, refer to the list below.