The social media app is a popular tool among scammers because it's a free platform with 'no traceable payments associated with establishing an account,' Steinberg says, and one that allows users to create accounts without any sort of identity check. If WhatsApp is involved, you can be reasonably sure a job ad is phony, he adds. We're having network issues because we're working remotely for Covid,' and then asking them for things that the people really shouldn't be giving,' Steinberg says.

'Criminals are saying, 'we'll talk to you via WhatsApp, that's the easiest way to do it. Hawaii Alaska Florida South Carolina Georgia Alabama North Carolina Tennessee RI Rhode Island CT Connecticut MA Massachusetts Maine NH New Hampshire VT Vermont New York NJ New Jersey DE Delaware MD Maryland West Virginia Ohio Michigan Arizona Nevada Utah Colorado New Mexico South Dakota Iowa Indiana Illinois Minnesota Wisconsin Missouri Louisiana Virginia DC Washington DC Idaho California North Dakota Washington Oregon Montana Wyoming Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma Pennsylvania Kentucky Mississippi Arkansas Texas View Plans From there, they coax victims into giving them personal information, like a social security number, they'd be reluctant to share with a stranger in any normal circumstance.Īnd since people have been conditioned to doing everything remotely these days-to the extent that it might not seem strange to communicate with a job recruiter solely through a messaging service- these scams are working. Typically, scammers instruct applicants to complete a text-based job interview on a messaging service like WhatsApp. And when there's something that looks good, they'd have to be crazy not to pursue it, just in case.' 'When you think about someone searching for a job, very often they're under psychological pressure. 'Job seekers are a great target,' he says. And as wide swaths of the unemployed have turned to job boards to hunt for work, so have scam artists.įraudsters are taking advantage of our 'new normal' - where Zoom interviews and virtual hiring are the norm - by posting fake job ads that are infuriatingly hard to detect, says cybersecurity and fraud expert Joseph Steinberg. Nearly 11 million Americans are without a job, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

How do whatsapp scams work