Job scams are fertile ground for scammers.   I have written about many forms  that these scams take.  Recently the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning about phony job offers being sent to people in text messages.  While some job scams that may appear on legitimate sites such as monster.com or LinkedIn may be harder to determine as scams, this text message job offer is easier to recognize as a scam because like lottery scams where you are told you have won a lottery you never enterred, in this instance you are being offered a job that you never applied for.  In both cases this is always a scam.

The text message may appear to be legitimate because the phone number from which it is being sent can be confirmed to be that of a legitimate company, however, it is a simple matter for a scammer to “spoof” the telephone number of a legitimate company to make it appear that the call is coming from a telephone number of a legitimate company when, in truth it is coming from a scammer at a different number.

The text message may require personal information including your Social Security number or require you to click on a link to take you to a phony site that will also ask for personal information.  Alternatively, merely clicking on the link can download dangerous malware.  Personal information provided can lead to identity theft.

TIPS

Unsolicited job offers coming to you by text message are always a scam.  If you need further proof, you can always determine if the company purportedly offering you the job is legitimate and contact their HR department to confirm that there was no job offer being made.

As always, it is a good practice to never click on a link in an email or text message unless you have confirmed it is legitimate and never provide personal information in response to a phone call, email or text message unless you have confirmed it is legitimate.

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