How scammers are cashing in on India's job problem

News articles revealing, investigating, or analyzing 419 Advance Fee Scams
User avatar
Caped Crusader
Site Admin
Posts: 5892
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:14 pm
Contact:

How scammers are cashing in on India's job problem

#1

Unread post by Caped Crusader » Sat Sep 08, 2018 4:41 am

How scammers are cashing in on India's job problem
by Tenzin Khando, economictimes.indiatimes.com
September 7, 2018
112DD0B3-6CFD-41FC-BA0D-2B3B8FCE95A7.jpeg
Though it might be difficult to spot a job racket on the face of it, candidates must be cautious about falling into a trap.'

NEW DELHI: You get a call from a jobs consultant promising you an interview at a reputed IT company. The consultant asks you to submit your original documents with the company. You go to the company office where the consultant makes you meet a representative in person. After that, a company representative interviews you. The consultant charges you hefty fees and gets you the job offer letter. When you reach the company office on the joining date, you are informed that the job offer is fake.

In 2011, few job racketeers managed to gain entry into the campus of a leading IT company by misusing the vendor entry cards issued by the company. They ran a very smooth operation and even interviewed candidates inside the office. They had everything in place, from fake company letterheads to a fake office on the company campus. They were caught by the police when a job aspirant found something amiss and got suspicious. “Just like fake phones, fake t-shirts, fake soaps, fake jobs are also quite prevalent in India,” says Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder and EVP, TeamLease Services.

Fake job rackets have become a booming industry, thanks to shrinking jobs in private as well as public sector and hordes of students passing out of low-quality professional colleges. In March, the railways received more than two crore applications for about one lakh vacancies. The spread of job rackets in India is due to the diminishing of jobs requiring low technical skills as the world moves towards automation, says Harpreet Singh Grover, Director, Aon Assessment Solutions.

From promising jobs in defence forces and the railways to getting you placed in top IT companies such as Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra and TCS, racketeers have spread their tentacles far and wide. As internet spreads in the country, it becomes a useful tool for racketeers to misrepresent themselves through fake websites and emails. When a large number of youths chase fewer private and government jobs, their desperation makes them an easy prey to job rackets.

How job rackets work

Exploiting the brand appeal: With private hiring going down in recent years, jobs at big companies are much sought after. A job at TCS or Wipro doesn't mean just employment but also a lot of prestige. Job racketeers exploit this appeal of big brands. Most job rackets ride on big brands to lure the youth in small towns and even in the outskirts of big cities. “They (racketeers) typically take money from the job seekers and sometimes even roll out fake offer letters for the candidates using fake letterheads,” says Chakraborty of Teamlease Services. In June this year, Hyderabad police arrested three persons who have been running two fake companies — Arkon Technologies in Somajiguda and Propel Technologies in Madhapur — for the last three months and collecting Rs 2 lakh from each candidate. While one accused used to introduce himself as managing director of Propel Technologies, another operated as head of HR for both Propel and Arkon. The trio set up a fake office and offered jobs at top companies like TCS, Wipro and Tech Mahindra.

Fishing at reputed job portals: Another way of conning job aspirants is through reputed job portals where racketeers fish for personal details of job seekers and exploit them later. "They build a database of critical personal information of unsuspecting candidates which can be dangerously misused at a later point,” says Chakraborty. In June, police arrested three men from Kavi Nagar in Ghaziabad for allegedly cheating several job seekers of around Rs 3.5 crore in the last two years. The mastermind of the racket posed on Naukri.com as representative of fictitious companies such as Idea International and Entomace Technology India Pvt Ltd and posted jobs. He would collect personal data of candidates who applied to those jobs. Later, he would send them fake interview letters from big, well-known companies. He wanted the candidates to pay through Paytm for fixing the interviews so they would get those jobs.

Fake websites: Another trick is to create websites of fictitious companies which the candidates can visit and be assured of the 'genuineness' of jobs offered. These racketeers also create social media accounts in the name of these fictitious companies. Some create fake job portals too. Candidates have to register on these portals which give the racketeers access to their personal information. They not only post fake jobs on these websites but also conduct tests and upload results and then charge the 'successful' candidates for clearing the interview.

Lookalike websites: Racketeers create websites that look exactly like those of reputed companies or government departments and have deceptively similar domain names. In May this year, Telangana police arrested three people for cheating job aspirants for creating a fake website of a government organisation Telangana Agro Development Corporation and invited job applications under various categories. They charged the candidates for application forms and processing.

Fake consultants: Some racketeers pose as fake job consultants and promise jobs at reputed companies and government departments by charging hefty fees. In March this year, Noida police arrested a man who posed as a fake job consultant with the help of three accomplices one of whom, a former employee of a reputed job portal, had stolen data of 3,000-odd job seekers. They would call up the youths, offer them jobs in private firms across NCR and ask them to pay at various steps. He had rented a well-furnished office at Rs 40,000 a month in Sector 72 where he would meet the candidates. The accused and his aides would first seek Rs 1,600 from the youths as registration fee, after which they would demand Rs 5,000 for document verification and Rs 10,000 for issuing the appointment letter.

Racket all the way: Some racketeers can go to any length to appear genuine. They won't stop at getting you a fake job letter. They will make you join the job, provide you training and even deposit salary in your account for a few months. In July, CBI arrested eight persons were running a railway jobs scam. They used to ask an aspirant to pay Rs 3 to 5 lakh to get a job. They had created a website deceptively similar to that of Railway Recruitment Board. They conducted fake recruitment tests and even published results on the fake website. The candidates were even asked to submit medical fitness certificates from a government hospital. Racketeers used a "modified" office of a lower-rung employee at Charbagh railway station in Lucknow to interview and "train" people. They were asked to perform sundry jobs on the railway station. Another railway jobs racket was busted by Delhi police in July in which the racketeers finally even paid salary for two months to the 'trainees'.

Fake campus placements: Yes, even campus placement could be fake. In May last year, racketeers duped an engineering college in Odisha. More than 300 students got fake placement offers from a fake campus recruitment drive conducted by the racketeers by misleading the college authorities. They provided fake job offers from companies such as Huawei, Mitsubishi and Ircon International. The scam came to light when students went to join the companies and were told those offers were fake.

How to detect a fake job

How can candidates protect themselves from fake job rackets? According to Chakraborty of Teamlease Services, companies follow some basic rules when hiring. Under no circumstance, the candidates is asked to pay in any form for their candidature. “If that happens, it’s an immediate 'no go'. No matter how much the fraudsters try to convince about the need for any such transaction. This is an absolute red flag,” she added.

Experts advise that one should do thorough research on the organisation from different public channels to check its authenticity. Connecting with people who are already working in such organisation will give an idea about its hiring process.

Chakraborty says a candidate must not share much personal particulars on any online site, especially when it comes to disclosing one’s house address or Aadhaar details. These can be misused later by racketeers for various criminal acts. However, such details can be shared at the time of onboarding, after taking care of the validity of the employment.

An essential observation of whether the recruiter is able to respond to any queries with confidence will satisfy one because “a genuine recruiter will have an adequate knowledge about the position and the company,” says Aditi Acharya, Regional Director, Professional Search and Selection, Randstad India. She believes that candidates must scrutinize the email ID from which they receive the job offers. Genuine professional recruiters would only use their official email IDs and would not rely on third-party email services such as Gmail or Yahoo.

Though it might be difficult to spot a job racket on the face of it, candidates must be cautious about falling into a trap. Acharya of Randstad suggests that if candidates suspect something during the recruitment process, they should report to relevant authorities instantly.

How companies tackle fake job offers

According to Grover of AON Hewitt, companies are starting to adopt sophisticated video and rating technologies in order to counter fake job recruiters. “The practice of putting up disclaimers across all offline and online touch points is now an accepted good practice of educating job seekers,” says Acharya of Randstad. TCS has even posted nearly two dozen samples of fake TCS job letters that racketeers use to dupe unsuspecting candidates.

One of the fake job offer letters posted on the TCS website to spread awareness among job seekers.

TCS has devised a sophisticated method of verifying a job offer letter. The letter contains a QR code which can be scanned on your mobile. The offer letter also provides an internet link which takes one to the company's verification page. One can also go to the company's career page to choose the way to verify the offer letter. In 2014, Tech Mahindra turned to digital signatures to help job seekers distinguish genuine offer letters from the fake ones.

Infosys points out on its website that the company never requests for fees for any purpose during or after the hiring process. It will never request money for the opportunity to apply or work. The hiring process involves at least one in-person interview at Infosys office premises. Infosys will not request for an interview on any instant messaging applications. The Infosys recruitment team corresponds from email addresses with the domain “@infosys.com”. However, there is also a possibility of scammers to display the sent email domain address as “@infosys.com” fraudulently. Nevertheless, receiving emails will be possible only with the legitimate “@infosys.com” domain. In case any generic email ID ending with Gmail/Yahoo domain is copied while receiving a job offer or interview call, be alert on the likelihood of a scammer, says the disclaimer. The Infosys recruitment team does not request or require personal documents like bank account details, tax forms or credit card information as part of the recruitment process, it adds. It also asks candidates if they are in doubt or unsure about the source of job offer to login to the 'Career' section on the Infosys website to verify the job offer or the application.

Wipro website lists the common attributes of fake job offer emails. They come from public email ids. They claim to come from 'Wipro Group of Industries Limited' or some such non-existent organization but claiming to carry the name of 'Wipro'. They call for cash deposit into a designated bank account. To make the offer seem authentic, the email will call for submission of 'qualification documents', 'experience certificate', photographs, etc. The emails will contain numerous apparent grammar and spelling errors. 90% of these mails call the aspirant for an interview at Delhi, Noida or Gurgaon. Often, the contact address, phone numbers given in the email are non-existent and false.

The Economic Times is India's largest business and financial news website. Get ET App -bitly.com/ET_App | Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jo ... 715370.cms



Post Reply
Stop 419 Scams and Scammers : Disclaimer