The Coca-Cola company has posted a scam notice about a site using the URL of www.instanthumanrecources.com posting phony work from home job listings claiming to be authorized representatives of Coca-Cola.
Typically, a victim receives an email asking the recipient to click a link in the message to complete a job application for work from home jobs at Coca-Cola. The job application form requests personal information, including Social Security numbers and copies of driver’s licenses. The practice of fraudulently stealing your personal and financial information is known as phishing.
The phishing website has been designed to look legitimate by including Coca-Cola Company images, photographs and other trademarks. Coca-Cola goes on to advise that "In some cases, the perpetrators have contacted the victims and falsely claimed to hire them in order to obtain additional personal and financial information and in some cases have asked them to cash fraudulent checks and send them money".
Coca-Cola goes on to say they are currently investigating the situation with the appropriate authorities and suggest that "If you have already provided any personal information to any contacts associated with this website or claiming to be Coca-Cola representatives, we recommend that you immediately discontinue all communications with the source and contact your local and/or federal authorities for advice on how to proceed to protect your personal information and privacy."
This Work at Home Scam Happened to Me
What makes this personally interesting for me is that I've received email from this company offering work from home employment, although not with Coca-Cola (at least not yet). You need to be very careful out there to make sure that a work from home job offer is legitimate before you go around giving out your personal information.
This is not the only site that has sent me email trying to get me to complete an online application to work from home. I am actively receiving messages from about 3 of these sites. Most of the offers are for work from jobs performing secretarial, writing and even management and executive-level job duties.
The company may tell you it saw your resume somewhere online (and in my case, it may have, since my resume is out on the web as an SEO Specialist). The sender is supposedly a recruiter or Human Resources manager and thinks you'd be perfect for a certain work-from- home-job opportunity that offers full benefits and an attractive pay rate. All you are required to do is click the link in the email message to complete an online application. The company representative goes on to say that once you've done that, the rep will call you for an interview. In some cases I've received multiple pitches from the same outfit for work from home job opportunities that aren't even related, such as a data entry worker in one email message and an executive-level account representative in another. Of course, they tell me I'm "perfect" for both positions.
Avoiding Work from Home Job Scams
Typically, these email messages include an opt-out link in the message. I never use an opt-out link because it tells the sender that they've reached a valid email address where someone is reading the incoming messages. If they don't continue to hound you, it's likely they'll just put you in their phishing database for other sites to pester you. Instead, I either block incoming messages from that organization or set up a filter in my email client to permanently delete them or forward them to the trash bin.
When you post your resume online, even with some of the more reputable job and career search websites, you may be exposing yourself to these kinds of work from home scams. Although the more reputable job sites tell you they won't share your contact information, some of the phishing operators must be posing as legitimate employers, registering with the job search sites and then retrieving your contact information.
If you have your doubts about a work from home job offer you receive in your email, don't respond. The easiest thing to do is a Google search for the company name offering the work or purporting to represent another company. You can also Google their domain name and see what you find. As I mentioned, I was able to determine these were scam messages almost instantaneously.
The other thing you can do is to investigate the company through the Better Business Bureau - BBB. You can search BBB's online database at http://search.bbb.org/. This page allows you to search by Company Name, Phone Number, Type of Business, URL, or Email Address.
If the BBB doesn't find a report based on your criteria, you can submit a form to the BBB with additional information and they'll create a report for you.
Of course, just because a company belongs to the BBB doesn't mean you won't get ripped off - it's possible they just haven't been caught yet. But the BBB does provide a valuable service to consumers.
Know Whom Your Dealing With Before Giving Up Personal Information for a Work at Home Job
If you're going to divulge personal information online (or over the phone, or using any method, really) you need to be sure you know with whom you are dealing. There are many people today who are looking for work from home jobs or who want to start a home business. That means they are potential targets for unscrupulous operators. That also means that if you are in that group you need to be more vigilant than others and do your homework. And never forget, "If it seems to good to be true, it probably is."
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