With university graduates searching for post-grad work and students looking for summer jobs, the Better Business Bureau Atlantic is warning job seekers about
employment scams.
"These types of scams are problematic for sure throughout the year … but certainly, you know, instances of reporting can go up in more popular times for people to be l
ooking for employment," said Julia Lewis, president and CEO of the Atlantic chapter.
According to the bureau's national risk report, employment scams ranked the second riskiest scam in 2024.
Lewis said this is because these scams have a high median loss at around $2,500.
She said there's a few ways scammers target job seekers for money. One way is to put the applicant through somewhat of a hiring process, which is usually quite quick,
and the scammer will say they're sending the person a cheque — whether it's for office equipment or gift cards for clients.
"They will send the cheque, the person will go off to the bank, they'll cash it [and] immediately, they will get a message from the scammer saying, 'Oh, we've actually
oversent money to you, can you please send us back a … certain amount?'" said Lewis.
