Online job scams are getting slick

MELVILLE, N.Y. — Online employment scammers are getting more sophisticated.

These phony employers are setting up dummy Web sites to make their operations look more legitimate. They're refining their virtual interview techniques to make candidates less suspicious. The scam itself — such as getting you to agree to transfer funds in and out of your own bank account — is likely relegated to the small print in an employment contract.

Those details come from Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a San Diego-based research and consumer education organization. According to her, "The risk landscape has really changed."

But so, too, has a job hunter's ability to push back and ask more questions, while legitimate recruiters become sensitized to candidates' desires to guard private information.

Some employers are even eliminating the request for Social Security numbers on a job application. Some allow temp candidates to fill in applications online, but don't ask for a Social Security number until the face-to-face interview, says Nancy Schuman, vice president of marketing for Lloyd Staffing.

Still, those looking for employment continue to be taken in by scammers, says Dixon, who hears from an average of two people a week who have been burned in some scheme, such as those transfer ruses in which the victimized job applicant winds up laundering stolen money through a bank or PayPal account.

Scammers tend to prey on those who seem naive about online usage as well as others looking to return to the work world in a home-based capacity. Still, Dixon heard recently from a man with a master's degree in finance saying he was taken for several thousand dollars. And yes, she says, he felt humiliated.

Other ruses to watch out for: Would-be employers who say their company pays only through direct deposit.

They insist that, to speed the first paycheck along, the applicant must fork over a bank-account number.

And the nice sign-on bonus: phony employers have been known to call to say that a check for the wrong amount has been mailed — say, for $4,000 instead of the $2,500 you had agreed on — and couldn't you please send them a check right away for the $1,500 difference?

Dixon says instances of fraud are much easier to document than identity theft, when a crook hijacks your information and uses it to open credit-card accounts, for instance. To guard against that, consider the following:

Take care in posting résumés online.

First, read a job board's privacy-policy statement on how résumé and registration information is stored and shared, Dixon says in a job-seeker's guide on her Web site.

If you do post a résumé, consider making use of job boards' cloaking functions that can conceal your contact information.

Employers who find you through a skills-and-experience scan can have the job board contact you about the opportunity, and you choose if you want to reveal your identity.

In any case, when you do provide contact information, it's best to give a cellphone number, not your home number, and an e-mail address from an account you set up specifically for the search.

Linda Foley, executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center, suggests on that organization's Web site that you provide your degree information, but not necessarily the school name and graduation year.

Why? Because thieves can replicate your identity with just snippets of information, Dixon says: They piece together what you divulge with what they learn from sites such as alumni Web pages and then combine those details with a phony Social Security number bought for as little as $50.

Make sure the recruiters you work with are reputable and not the kind to spam your résumé to the rest of the universe — including posting it to Web sites without your knowledge, says Allison Hemming, president of New York-based staffing firm The Hired Guns.

That's for two reasons: First, it keeps your résumé from being perceived as wallpaper, thus making you a less interesting candidate. And it keeps your résumé out of the hands of those with ill intent.

To find responsible recruiters, she suggests you ask friends and those you meet at professional association events.

And when you start working with a recruiter, be sure to let him or her know that you have some ground rules for sending your résumé out.

Do a search of your own name to see just what personal data may already be online: things you had nothing to do with posting, such as government documents bearing your Social Security number.

You can do a search on Google or through a site such as ZoomInfo.com, which aggregates all public online information on more than 27 million people.

You can create your own professional bio there, and you can ask that anything you deem too personal be removed from the site (though it will remain on the original source site).

Granted, ZoomInfo is more "focused on the things people are proud of," such as accomplishments and previous employers, says Russell Glass, vice president of products.

"Still, we do make people aware of how much information is out there about them."

And, as he puts it, today it's all about "knowing what's out there and understanding how to take control of it."