Police place fictitious job advertisements – that’s what’s behind it

The police, together with Ebay classifieds, are warning of fraudulent job advertisements or advertisements for lucrative additional income opportunities on the Internet. The scammers lure their victims to job exchanges or classified ads with promises such as “best earning potential, flexible working hours, little work”. Earning money is possible without any special qualifications, as the promise goes.

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The target of the scammers

The goal of these fake job advertisements: the scammers want prospective applicants to open a bank account, which the gangsters can then use to conduct fraudulent business. The bank account is said to be required for “testing purposes” or to “verify” the information provided by the job seeker.

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In another variant, the alleged job providers demand that the job seekers make their existing bank accounts available for transactions. They would then receive payments to forward to other accounts, often overseas. Part of the sum may be retained as wages.

However, it is not only the accounts that the fraudsters misuse for their machinations, the gangsters are also interested in the personal data of the job applicants. They then use this for identity theft and, for example, offer goods on the Internet in the name of job applicants. The fraudsters collect the money paid for this, but never deliver the goods for which they were paid. The unsuspecting job applicant then has the subsequent trouble when the police suddenly ring the doorbell and investigate because of the suspicion of fraud or money laundering.

Police place fake job advertisements

In order to warn against the scams described above, the “Police Crime Prevention of the Federal States and the Federal Government” has placed its own “Job Advertisements” on Ebay Classifieds. These “bait offers” were created for various cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich. These ads look very similar to the fraudulent ads, but warn of the dangers in the ad text, explain possible patterns and give valuable tips.

The police drew an initial conclusion: “One week after the advertisements were published, they already had over 5,000 hits. Around 200 users saved the supposed job offers on their watch list. In more than 100 inquiries, interested parties inquired about details and asked for tips or have comprehensive information sent to me.”

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