How to Spot a Job Scam Before It's Too Late | with Mark Anthony Dyson

[00:00:00] Hello, hello. You're tuning into the Careering with Cameron Podcast, your safe place to ask all the dumb questions about finding a job. Hey, everybody. It is Kevin Cameron, and thanks for joining us today on Careering with Cameron. I am so excited to introduce you guys to Mark Dyson, who has a company called The Voice of Job Seekers.

[00:00:26] And Mark is joining us today because we're going to cover a topic that I've been hearing from people about, and it's pretty disturbing and pretty troubling in terms of folks that are in the interview or job search process that are unfortunately being tricked and getting spammed and having their identity stolen. And so some of you have probably seen fake LinkedIn profiles occasionally, running into things like that.

[00:00:55] But we're going to talk about how do you protect yourself from getting involved with one of these types of searches? And more importantly, what do you do if you find out that the person you thought you were talking to is not that person at all, even though their LinkedIn profile looks just like the right person? So, Mark, thanks so much for joining us today. Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Mark, how did you get into this type of work?

[00:01:23] Well, I started out as a good practitioner in the career and job search space, but I always have been writing. Then I decided about 10 years ago that writing was better for me, and that kind of was the pathway to talk a lot, get some attention.

[00:01:48] And to also help a whole ton of others that I might not have been able to help being a practitioner. So here I am. I like it. I like it.

[00:01:58] So, you know, I have run into folks who I've been helping who have reached out and been really disturbed, rightfully so, that they had a recruiter in some cases or somebody from a company in some cases reach out to them and start the process of asking for their information, which that's an exchange we have. That's not a problem. Right.

[00:02:22] And then all of a sudden something happens and they realize the information that they're being asked to provide is not necessarily job-related stuff, whether it's a social security number. In some cases, it's a bank account number. There's all kinds of things. Bring us up to speed. Like, what in the world is going on, Mark? Why? Has this just started? What's going on? Well, you know, under the old guise, and I can go back about 12, 13 years ago. Sure.

[00:02:48] To where job scams were mostly, you know, elderly, those who weren't internet savvy, they were easily trapped into being scammed out of money. And along the focus was because the younger people were more internet savvy. The older people weren't as savvy, so they thought any contact was a good contact.

[00:03:15] And they thought that any opportunity they can, because some people have to work in their senior years, probably a whole lot more than we've ever talked about, right? Sure. So we're looking at 55 plus now as opposed to 65 plus who are getting trapped for these days more money than they ever had before.

[00:03:36] But back then, because they didn't know how to navigate, they didn't know how to research, they didn't know to research a company or a person or a thing to see if they're valid. They end up getting trapped into a scam and losing lots of money.

[00:03:52] Now, being that scams are much more sophisticated, the amount of technology are at all of our fingertips, people are getting scammed more often. And now it's younger people getting scammed more often. It happens to older people, but just for more money.

[00:04:15] But all that, that's kind of a short cut to all of this, to where it started four years ago, when it started to really rise. When we first began, I was, of course, writing about job search and careers for the last 15 years. But I began to notice that people are starting to get in these traps and getting lured for a lot of money.

[00:04:41] And so what's happened is, is that recruiters are being imitated. Hiring managers are first being imitated. We were calling it job fishing about four years ago. That's when I was writing articles about it. I was running for another publication and got caught a little wind at first, began to have a few discussions. But people thought it was like the same old job sketch. I said, no, this is different.

[00:05:09] They're being able, the scammers are now, just like anybody, can pretend to be a whole company. All they had to do was change that Microsoft from one T to two Ts at the end. And make a separate URL that could go and scrape the actual website and make it look like Microsoft.

[00:05:33] They could even play around with the URL to make different departments so it looks like it's official. And people go there, wow, this looks like Microsoft, but they don't vet the recruiter. They don't vet the person. So people are evolving. They're starting to vet both. But very often they don't go deep enough. So without, I'm going to wait for your questions to prompt me, but that's kind of how we got where we are.

[00:06:02] That the imitations are better. And they rely on people being desperate in this economy, being full of anxiety, full of stress, all of that to get people to click that next link. Absolutely. To go to this job site that doesn't exist. Well, and sometimes it's just pure excitement that somebody is reaching out with an opportunity.

[00:06:27] And I would even say that there are times that it happens with people who are not in an aggressive job search. But it's a link that comes across. Somebody is interested in you for your background. You're going to click into that link and all of a sudden now you're sharing information you don't necessarily want to be sharing with somebody who's not who you think they are. Yeah.

[00:06:47] And just for our audience, if you have not, hopefully not had this experience, these are also LinkedIn profiles that look exactly the same as the real person's LinkedIn profile. It's just, as Mark said, it's just a matter of that domain being slightly off and being able to then utilize that profile to get in touch with people and to begin the process of essentially robbing them, for lack of a better term.

[00:07:16] Yeah, it is. It is. It's a crime. Right. These people are committing crimes. It's not a prank. Right. And I think people treat it like a prank. And that's why many of these go unreported. The people who, and to you lose thousands, some people tend to thousands, some, and they're usually older, would lose like hundreds of thousands.

[00:07:40] All because they were feeling, you know, stress, feel the anxiety, feel the depression, and the urgency from the person that's communicating at the end mixed in makes people respond a certain way. So they think they could have that tie into the next job or just make this new job the old job. Yep. And it doesn't work that way. And really, it's nonsensical.

[00:08:07] But it makes total sense when you're feeling the way you do. Yes. So scammers are great marketers. And I've had arguments over with. But they're great marketers because they know who their next victims are. Yep. Just like a marketer knows who their next client should be. Well, they're doing their homework. Absolutely.

[00:08:30] I've also heard that there's an uptick in students exiting college or university who are being targeted and being scammed because that process is all brand new. And so the process of job search is something that they haven't had experience with. And therefore, at times, it can be easier to trick them into clicking these links and having these conversations. Thank you for confirming what I've been reporting about the past few months.

[00:09:00] Last year, and I think I was the only one who saw this, Newsweek reported a small survey of about a thousand or so folks. And they found from May to the end of July, there was a thousand percent surge. Actually, they reported what McAfee was reporting. Newsweek just reported in that magazine.

[00:09:25] But having said that, though, guess who graduates between May and late July? Students. Students are the ones. So, you know, it's important to ring the bell. And it's just interesting because I have friends that I'm friends with that are in the college. They do a pretty good job warning their students because I kind of prompt them, be sure you kind of warn them.

[00:09:52] But on a larger scale, I don't have the evidence, but I just had this feeling many don't educate them going in and many don't educate them going out. And guess who's the most vulnerable? Those are going in and those are coming out. And for entirely different reasons, but it's the same thing.

[00:10:11] So I think that you just confirmed what I've always thought, that college students, they end up in a place where they don't realize what's happening until they get deep into it. Because they think any job opportunity is a good opportunity. All I have to do is work hard and all these traditional things. But you've got to be vigilant. And you've got to, what I always say, clarify, verify, and don't just apply. Check them out. Vet them. Research them.

[00:10:41] Yeah. Well, I mean, you're also at that stage of your life, super motivated to get started with work. And so pumping the brakes and verifying something is not often the first response. The other thing is that, you know, career services I don't necessarily know is going to be focused on avoiding their students being scammed because it is kind of a new topic that's happening. But it's been happening for years. It's been happening for years.

[00:11:08] There's a way for students to become money mules. They'll move money around from account to account. They easily get a link saying, hey, you'd be a great fit. This would be great money. You could take all the time you need to study. You get all the flexible time. You get all the PTO you can eat. But you can make $500 in two days for a college student, freshman, or sophomore.

[00:11:37] That's awesome if that were true. In most cases, they're not. So they go through it. And so what do students do naturally? When they find a good thing, they share it with others. Yep. Even before they start. So now you've got two or three people on board, but you all are just acting and being led astray because it's a crime. It's a crime to do those acts.

[00:12:06] But for the average student, unless you've been educated by your parents or by your school, it falls on deaf ears until something happens. Yeah. So the other side of the fence here is the folks who, you know, I think that the coverage around our older population and being scammed is something that has been starting to tick up even more so, thankfully, because I think it is a major issue. But I know it's a major issue.

[00:12:36] But also that age group, like you said, of the 50 plus where you feel as though you're probably aware of what a scam would look like because what a scam used to look like is not what a scam looks like now. No, not at all. So you don't really take that step back typically to say, am I being scammed by this note? Because it looks like a real thing. It looks like something you've seen a thousand times. To your point, they're great marketers.

[00:13:06] They've done their homework. They know what you typically look at and they know what you're expecting and they know what your response is usually going to be. So it is really scary. Mark, how do we stop this? Like, how do we protect ourselves from ending up in a situation where we're calling every bank we have, every credit card, whatever it may be, calling friends and family and saying, I'm not in a different country and I don't need you to wire money to me. Like all of those different scams that go on. How do we get on top of this? Right. Right.

[00:13:35] First of all, it starts with the individual. Like I said, my framework of clarify, verify, don't just apply. First, you got to be, it's not just clearly seeing that this person's scam, it's clearly seeing your own personal goals.

[00:13:53] And I sent out a LinkedIn post this morning about how if you're thinking more about what you contribute, you'll have less problems in defining what an actual scam is. Because somebody starts saying, hey, you'd be a great fit in this position. You go check the position out and say, well, what in the world would I contribute?

[00:14:21] So right there is like, well, that wouldn't be fit if I don't know what I'm contributing. So you may even go back and forth and ask what that is. It's unlikely you'll be told that. So that's one way to clarify. The other ways is just to stop and think about why would this make sense for this much money to have this flexible schedule, to have this much PTO.

[00:14:49] This doesn't make any sense. Why would it be? And check this out. If you're clear about your industry and the industry you're pursuing, you know your industry doesn't offer those kind of things. You know this would not make any sense. You know most jobs wouldn't offer this. But because of people where they're all, and to your point earlier, it's sort of like the guy and the girl who hasn't been complimented on the looks for about a year.

[00:15:19] Then all of a sudden, they get a compliment. They go, ooh, I kind of like that. That does something to them. It's the same thing. If you've been job searching for six months to a year, somebody gives you, say, you're a great fit. You're going. You're excited. You're excited. And so that plays into it. You may even be conflicted and excited, and both could be true at the same time. So that would be that first step. And secondly, it's to verify.

[00:15:47] So you're going to vet and research the person that reached out to you. You're going to go to their LinkedIn profile. Now, you have to be careful because people can just point to a LinkedIn profile and say that there's anybody over the phone. So if it's somebody on LinkedIn and people have done this, they say, well, the person was on LinkedIn. I said, did you send them an invite? More than likely, they didn't get a response. And you know what?

[00:16:17] That imposter can't because they're just using it. Now, there are cases where bad actors have taken over longstanding LinkedIn profiles or just hacked it. And that's possible. Well, then that means you have to do more research. But all that to say, you got to do that work. And don't just apply means that you're not going to just go to wherever somebody sends you a link.

[00:16:47] You're going to call the company, check with a real recruiter for that company, see if they're doing it, see if co-workers know, see if anybody knows if that company is really hiring for this kind of position. Now, the dialogue you should get is saying, well, this is a special situation. There is no such special situation when it comes to jobs because the legalities that are kind of attached to that, right?

[00:17:15] You know, as a recruiter, they automatically say, really special? How special can this be where nobody on the inside knows? Right. So, you know, all those things considered, but I just took you through the light. You can either go deeper, but really when it comes down to that one red flag, if it doesn't check out, either pause a whole lot longer or disengage.

[00:17:42] I've been recommending disengage, but, you know, sometimes you do get the recruiters who have scammy behavior and, you know, they might be recruiters. They just act terribly. And the question might be then said, do you really want to work with that kind of person? Right. That's exactly right. Yeah. I think, you know, to your point, there's a couple of different levels that need to happen here.

[00:18:07] And in concert with what you're laying out from a career planning perspective and from an interviewing perspective, please make sure that you're doing some research before you start responding to things. You want to know who you're responding to, even if it's not a scam. Make sure you know who you're responding to. Yeah. I love the fact that Mark made, the point that Mark made around, you know, just because they send you an email and it has a link to their LinkedIn profile does not mean that that LinkedIn profile is real. Go into LinkedIn and do a search for them.

[00:18:37] If there's two profiles that come up, we may have a problem. Yeah. And then the next piece of that also, and we talked about this earlier on, we talked about it last time we chatted. Look at the domain. Look at the domain address they're using. Make sure that it actually makes sense. If something's misspelled, chances are that company didn't miss that typo. It's pretty sure that that's where it is. And they can use a tool. I got a tool for you. Actually, there's a bunch I have on the job scam report. Okay.

[00:19:07] Not a specific tool, but there are places where you can go to check to make sure a company is real. Excellent. The company, the best URL that I've been recommending is called whois.com. That's W-H-O-I-S dot com. And what it does, it will tell you who created this account. Now, let's say, again, using Microsoft with the extra T, they send you a URL.

[00:19:37] Let's say it says career-microsoft.com. That should sound funny as it is. But just in case you put it in and it says that the owner just created it last year, you know that's problematic automatically. Exactly. Not only that, but it's owned by somebody else other than Microsoft. Can you imagine, you know, that somebody's personal name owns a Microsoft name?

[00:20:06] That's just insane. That sounds unlikely to me. It's not for a big company, a small company. Yeah. We can get to, I mean, we're not going to go into the minutia of that. But all that to say is that that tells you everything you need to know. Once you debunk the company, once you debunk the recruiter, you've done a research on recruiter, say, hey, this guy can't be a recruiter. You know, because of you check them out, they don't check out. Yeah.

[00:20:36] So, you know, and recruiters from what I know, I have a lot of friends who are recruiters. They're very forthright with who they are and their credentials. Yes. It's very clear. They'll point you to their LinkedIn profile. They'll give you the company name and number. They'll tell you to go do the research themselves. But you can look through their activity as they've been doing it for the years. Yep. They're good. As opposed to somebody just out of the blue and just pointing you to places.

[00:21:05] You got to be skeptical. Yeah. And on that note also, and this is something that I started to hear about recently, the recruiter should not be reaching out and asking for a social security number. Absolutely. Anything regarding banking information. Yeah. Anything regarding identification where you'll be sending it over. Right. All of these things are things that that's not a question that you should be fielding and responding to with information.

[00:21:36] Right. The privacy component is something that they're not going to have an initial call with you and say, can you please send over your social security number so we can identify you in our files. That's not their role. And I think that's something that people can do is to be educated in what recruiters actually do. That's another department that actually does that. And as much later in the process, no real recruiter is going to leave with that information.

[00:22:04] And just for them to leave with it, hang up, disengage, get rid of them. Because it's not scrupulous by any means, even if they were real. But again, you know, once you one red flag is all it takes for you to be skeptical enough to either check further or disengage. Yeah. Mark, what other information can we get from the job report? And we're certainly going to include that in the show notes. The job scan report. Yes.

[00:22:33] Job scan report. There's about 150, over 150 at this particular point, articles, videos, podcasts. You can find the job scan report videos on YouTube. You can use it for finding the podcast. On the podcast, I have often I have other panel members with me, which we practice zero trust.

[00:23:03] We don't trust anything that comes. And that's what we tell you to do as a job seeker. Don't trust anything until you can prove that they're right. That's different than that you're right until you're wrong. You know, you're wrong until you're right is the best way to scoop that. But, yeah, articles, I go deeper probably than most people do.

[00:23:25] I might be one of the few in the job and career space that actually goes as deeper as I've done. But, yeah, we've been, there's tons of articles, stories, what to do, different perspectives. I talk about the military. I talk about college particularly. Military is very interesting. We won't get to this. That's a whole nother deep end there.

[00:23:53] Job seeker, older job seekers, especially, even though they're not, they're scammed not as frequently as the younger Gen Z. But they're scammed for more money, as I talked about earlier. Because scammers know that. They have that kind of intelligence. Yep. So they know who their audience are. They know what kinds of things that they're concerned about.

[00:24:21] And seniors are concerned about longevity. But much of your audience is college and young people. So, you know, what they have to look, they have to look at every facet and learn to disengage a lot faster. Even if that might have been a scammy behaving recruiter with a legitimate opportunity.

[00:24:43] Again, it goes back to the mindset of why would you want to work with somebody who presents a scammy behaving profile? Wow. Mm-hmm. And I think it's also okay, and this is a good reminder to that audience, it's also okay to, you know, when you're picking up a phone call and typically this person is probably calling you and saying they need all this information.

[00:25:07] To ask if they can share that with you over email so that you can respond with the information that they're asking for is often a great way to corner that person, if it's not true, into being able to do some more research. On the flip side, it's a better way to respond to the question more completely because you're not in the middle of two things trying to respond to their questions. Right. So I love that.

[00:25:33] Mark, what about in the situation where unfortunately we've been scammed? Already scammed. Somebody at this point has access to banking information, credit cards, whatever it may be. What's the next step? How do we help those folks? Okay. So college students who might have been a money mule may have given their access to their financial information, their banking information. They need to contact the bank.

[00:26:02] They need to contact the police. They need to contact their college career services because more than likely you're not the only one who got caught. Right. But secondly, it's so that they can help you identify where there might be other problems and vulnerabilities at. Mm-hmm. You want to also start off. And as a college student, you do have a credit report.

[00:26:30] You want to close that baby down. Yeah. For sure. And you also may need to call, depending on what information you gave, social security, office. That could be effective too because all this is intel from the scammer to imitate them, not just take money from them. Taking money from them is the short game for them.

[00:26:54] The long game is being able to use that personal information as a freshman or to a senior even. As you get into junior and senior, you're going to have great credit based on the promises of your future, not because of what you do and how you spend it. You might. Right. But very often, it's going to be so you're vulnerable. Right. You want to shut that baby down.

[00:27:24] Now, take any job seeker. If you're unemployed, you want to shut your credit reports down so they can't be checked. That will save a lot. And also talk to your bank and have those conversations. If you even think that you might have given someone the wrong information, place that call. Now, some banks are better than others in alerting you, saying, hey, we see this kind of activity. It's just you. There are some banks that aren't.

[00:27:53] So you have to be proactive more than you have to be reactive. What about our experienced hire? So the folks that are in their 50s or so, obviously, that's a bigger score for the scammer. Yeah. They are maybe realizing a little too late that they gave information they shouldn't have given out. Anything change with them in terms of protecting themselves?

[00:28:18] Probably you're going to possibly change accounts depending on how much damage is done. Because, of course, when they have access to a lot more money because with seniors, especially if they retired and maybe even retired well enough to have tens of thousands, many of them don't move that money from a secure account. They want access to it.

[00:29:12] So you want to take you want to be proactive. But in case you do, you got to start alerting everybody. Even if money was stolen from Visa but not American Express, you want to give a call to American Express as well. And there's other tools that are out there for seniors to respond to. But it's just a lot of them are very gun shy and getting on the Internet and doing things and being proactive.

[00:29:41] So they end up having to make calls. But that's going to be one of the best ways for seniors to start being proactive, knowing what your steps are, having a plan B in case you do feel like you've been encroached wrongly. Yeah. Mark, this is outstanding.

[00:30:01] And I think it's going to be very helpful to our audience in terms of whether they have unfortunately faced the scamming component or at some point I'm pretty sure that everybody will run into it. And so it's really a value add to the audience. As we always do with podcasts and we have guests on, I like to know what your why is just because I think that everybody has a different story and how they got to where they are now. What's your why in terms of this type of work? What made you get into it?

[00:30:32] I think when I first started writing resumes years ago, 2008, 2009, I realized that not only people really didn't know how to respond because 2008, 2009 was kind of when we had the fallout, right? The economic fallout. Yeah. Unlike this one, that one almost seemed like things happened overnight. Mm-hmm.

[00:31:02] As opposed to, you know, now it's sort of like a slow and steady train wreck. Mm-hmm. So I think people responded differently. And there was a lot that I didn't know because I was just writing out just to help people out and to get into it. I mean, get into their career and get more defined path.

[00:31:24] But the more I realized that I had something a little bit more to say, I kind of went in that direction and followed it. And it actually became more purposeful than I intended, of course. So, you know, I found my way to here. 17 years, 18 years later, as it started low, I started the Voice of Job Secrets back in 2011.

[00:31:51] I started the Job Scam Report in 2024. Mm-hmm. But people need help and they need answers right away. If I can help in making an immediate impact, I can. And I do. And I will. Without barriers. I'm not a coach anymore. So I can give all this stuff away for free because I'm good. I'm good as far as my life and how my wife lives and my kids are good. So, you know, they're grown.

[00:32:21] They live on the East Coast. They're wonderful. They're set. So, you know, I don't have, you know, any barrier to entry to make this something really meaningful. I love it. Yeah. And it's so meaningful and so helpful because when you get into that spot and you're lost and you don't really understand what's happening and how to stop it, it's very scary. And it's difficult to make sure that you have everything covered.

[00:32:48] So I really appreciate you coming on the show today and sharing with us. I'm hoping that maybe you can share some links with us as well that we'll share out for people to reach out to you. Yeah. But just for the ones that are listening right now, they're like, I have to get a hold of Mark. How can people reach you, Mark? Mark. The Voice of Job Seekers. The JobScan Report on all platforms. And, of course, my name is Mark Anthony Dyson. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

[00:33:16] I use Mark Anthony Dyson just for the web. You don't have to see if you see me. Don't call me Mark Anthony. Call me Mark. I get that sometimes when I'm at conferences or at done interviews. Yeah. Mark Anthony is – I'm the only Mark Anthony that has my credentials on the web. Okay. So, you know, we're good that way. I love it. I love it. Mark, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:33:44] I have enjoyed it. I've learned a lot from you both times we've chatted at this point in terms of protecting yourself and verifying and making sure that you know who you're talking to and it's the right person. So, thanks again. And we'll make sure that the audience has the ability to reach out to you both via this recording but also via the links that we'll include in the podcast.

[00:34:11] Audience, if you have enjoyed our show today, please go ahead and give us five stars for today's subject. I'm sure that it will be helpful either to you or somebody you know. If there's somebody you know who is in a position where they may be starting a job search or hopefully not but maybe they've come through a situation similar where they've been scammed and they need some help figuring out how to clean that up, please go ahead and share this podcast with them so they can get started and hopefully talk to Mark.

[00:34:38] And then go ahead and subscribe to the podcast because there'll be other fun things that we bring along and make sure we don't miss any time with Mark going forward. So, again, please go ahead. Make sure you link to Mark on LinkedIn. Make sure you give us a follow and we'll see you next time on Career with Cameron. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Kevin.