4 red flags a job offer may be bogus

Many people are looking for work these days, and the most popular place to search are the big job hunting websites.

Unfortunately, it seems more and more jobs advertised online are really just online scams hoping to get your money.

Offers Started Coming In

Mike Kleshock is looking for work. So he listed his resume on a number of popular employment web sites, and says that within a few days, the offers started coming in.

Kleshock said "I started in January getting these emails from companies that had legitimate names."

But that's when this college graduate started noticing some red flags of bogus job offers, even though the corporate names were familiar ones.

Beware These Red Flags

Number one:

• Offers coming from foreign companies.

Kleshock said "in every case, they said they were looking to expand their operations into the United States, they needed somebody with a good credit rating."

That made him suspicious.

Which leads to red flag number two:

• Any company that wants you to pay for a credit check before an interview.

They may simply want your money, or worse, your Social Security number.

Deposit This Check, Please!

Kleshock says he responded to several companies that then sent him a check he was supposed to cash.

He said "they sent me a check, and it looked like a legitimate cashier's check drawn on a bank."

But that is red flag number three:

• Any company that wants you to deposit money into your bank account, for mystery shopping purposes, payment processing, or any other reason.

Kleshock said "one company even wanted me to be a Pay Pal manager, which seemed very unusual."

Career counselors say the bigggest red flag of all,  number four, is:

• Companies wanting account numbers or money before an interview.

Counselor Reggie McEmhaney of Job News USA.com told us "you want to be afraid of anything that asks for money up front of anything, and anything requiring too much personal information."

Remember, Kleshock is a college grad and was almost fooled, which means you could be, too.

He warned "these appeared to be real, familiar companies. But somebody has stolen their name."

The Bottom Line

Bottom line: Be suspicious of any job listing involving deposing checks, moving money, or foreign companies. While some foreign firms can be legit, many are just offshore scam artists looking to entrap you.

And that way you don't waste your money.

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