BALTIMORE — Companywide layoffs left Linda Kenyon looking for work. Then a headhunter reached out with a job he said matched her experience.
The longtime journalist and former CBS Radio White House correspondent had marked herself open to work on LinkedIn. The recruiter pitched a communications position at Pew Research Center.
“He sent me the job description. He sent me the salary range. He sent me a list of questions. It all seemed very legitimate,” Kenyon said.
But before he would advance her candidacy, he told her she needed a professionally written resume.
She paid $500 to a company he recommended, then learned the job didn’t exist.
The person contacting Kenyon used the name Mark Berman. He said her answers were impressive and wanted to present her to the hiring team. But her resume needed work, so he referred her to a documents company.
“I don’t even work with them. I just sometimes refer clients to them,” Kenyon recalled him saying.
She checked the company’s website then moved forward with his recommendation.
“They said it would cost me up to $1,800 for a resume, a cover letter, and a CV,” Kenyon said. “I said no. So they said, Okay, $500.”
She was skeptical, but didn’t want to miss a potential job.
“If I don’t pursue this, I will always be wondering,” she said.
She paid the $500 and sent the documents to the recruiter. Then came another request: a professionally written biography.
Kenyon wrote one herself. But she said the recruiter rejected it and directed her back to the documents company, which wanted several hundred dollars more.
This time, she declined and contacted Pew Research Center directly.
In an email to Kenyon, a representative told her Pew sometimes uses recruiters, but did not use a man named Mark Berman, and they were not recruiting for that position.
Kenyon had paid by credit card. She disputed the $500 charge and got her money back.
“I like to think that I’m a little bit savvy at least, and you know they still got me,” Kenyon said.
FBI Baltimore Supervisory Special Agent Keith Custer described the targeted approach as a form of spear phishing.
“Somebody’s identified a specific target,” he said.
Custer says employment scams are rampant during the holidays. Some start with unsolicited texts or too-good-to-be-true work-from-home offers. Others promise payment for completing tasks, then require job seekers to contribute their own money.
“They need to complete a certain number of tasks before they get access to their earnings, so they’ll have to pay to unlock these tasks,” Custer said.
A website may show a growing balance, making it appear the person is earning money. But the FBI warns those balances can be fake. The payments to unlock the work go to scammers, while the supposed earnings remain unavailable.
The target isn’t always the job seeker’s money.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance disclosed that a fake job interview was part of an attack that led to approximately $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency being stolen. The company said about $2.85 billion had been frozen or intercepted as of its November 3 update.
Custer said an employee was asked to download software, supposedly as a test of their development abilities.
“It contained malware, gave the bad guys access to this employee’s laptop,” he said.
Other employment scams seek personal information. Custer warned that applicants may be asked to provide a selfie holding their identification, which criminals could use to open financial accounts or facilitate other crimes.
He has seen people across professions fall for employment scams.
“Doctors, lawyers, engineers, FBI employees, probably news anchors or news reporters, you name it, nobody’s immune,” Custer said.
The FBI recommends taking these steps before sharing money or personal information:
- Verify the job and recruiter. Research the company independently. Check its official careers page and contact the employer using information you find yourself. A posting on a job board doesn’t establish that an opening is legitimate.
- Don’t pay to unlock work or earnings. Requests to send money to an alleged employer, particularly cryptocurrency, are a warning sign.
- Protect your personal information. Verify the employer before sharing banking details, your Social Security number or copies of your identification.
- Be cautious with links and downloads. Avoid opening attachments or downloading files from unsolicited job messages.
- Look beyond the website’s appearance. Scammers can copy company websites and create similar web addresses. Even a site using “https” can be fraudulent.
Another version of an employment scam starts with a check supposedly intended to buy equipment. The applicant is instructed to deposit it, then send money to a supplier or return an overpayment. The check is fake. When it bounces, the applicant is responsible for the money sent.
If you suspect a scam, contact your financial institution immediately and ask whether the payment can be stopped or reversed. Report the incident to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, the job platform and the company being impersonated. Save the correspondence and transaction information.
The FBI also warns against paying someone who promises to recover lost cryptocurrency.
Kenyon has since found a position at NPR. She hopes sharing her experience will help someone else pause before paying.
“When you’re in a position of vulnerability, people are going to take advantage of that,” she said. “And being out of work is a very, very vulnerable position.”