Spam email which looks like genuine job offers/job websites

[Ellener]

In the past few days I have been bombarded with spam email which looks like job offers, I can tell by the email addresses when looked at more closely they are just 'phishing' scams, and a potential security risk. 

 

 

 

[Mystery4u]

Cool. And night follows day. So what's new?

[Ellener]

6 hours ago, Mystery4u said:

Cool. And night follows day. So what's new?

Manners maketh man.🙂

What's new is the first couple, one was for retraining, another for a genuine job search agency, came via the government after I had claimed benefits. They were unsolicited but real and I received emails same time from the workforce commission to say they had passed on my email.

The ones which have followed are in similar format and way more convincing than typical  'prince from Nigeria' type spam.

A lot of people are desperate for a job right now and don't need to be clicking links and posting all their personal info on what looks like a job or training application.

 

 

[Wiseman2]

7 hours ago, Ellener said:

In the past few days I have been bombarded with spam email which looks like job offers, I can tell by the email addresses when looked at more closely they are just 'phishing' scams, and a potential security risk. 

 

 

 

Doesn't your email have a report spam feature?  Don't open it, just train your email app to recognize it as spam by reporting it and marking it as spam

Edited October 8, 2020 by Wiseman2

[Ellener]

13 minutes ago, Wiseman2 said:

Doesn't your email have a report spam feature?  Don't open it, just train your email app to recognize it as spam by reporting it and marking it as spam

Thanks, I'll look at that, this is my gmail account. 

 

[introverted1]

Gmail absolutely has a "mark as spam" feature, which will send all future email from that address straight to your spam folder.

Phishing and spam emails are nothing new.  People need to be smart about when/whether to click links.  As a rule, no legitimate organization is going to ask for personal information in an email, nor offer a job to an unknown candidate.

[Ellener]

25 minutes ago, introverted1 said:

As a rule, no legitimate organization is going to ask for personal information in an email, nor offer a job to an unknown candidate.

lt is strange with the 'networking' type job sites like Indeed, Care.com, I followed some links there one day and found myself signing up to Linked.in...which was set up as part of a job application...and they are legitimate websites.

Then having started that inadvertent Linked.in connection which I never activated, the man I've been talking to about dating showed up in emails from Linked.in as in 'do you know X/connect to X'. It's all a bit sinister to me, but it's become the norm. My son set up a new computer for himself recently, he was immediately sent targeted advertising for his favourite, but obscure, English football team. 

I'm actually using the sites more to see what people need and adapting my own business. Indeed sends me lots of vacancy emails and suggestions but many of the jobs are unreasonable, poor pay or conditions, which I expect is why they can't be filled. 

 

[introverted1]

2 hours ago, Ellener said:

lt is strange with the 'networking' type job sites like Indeed, Care.com, I followed some links there one day and found myself signing up to Linked.in...which was set up as part of a job application...and they are legitimate websites.

Then having started that inadvertent Linked.in connection which I never activated, the man I've been talking to about dating showed up in emails from Linked.in as in 'do you know X/connect to X'. It's all a bit sinister to me, but it's become the norm. My son set up a new computer for himself recently, he was immediately sent targeted advertising for his favourite, but obscure, English football team. 

I'm actually using the sites more to see what people need and adapting my own business. Indeed sends me lots of vacancy emails and suggestions but many of the jobs are unreasonable, poor pay or conditions, which I expect is why they can't be filled. 

 

Do you have LinkedIn set to block access to your contacts?  If not, they will match the emails of your contacts to those in their system and that's where you're getting those "do you know X' notifications from.

And yes, the job sites will send you all sorts of mail about potential jobs (legit and otherwise - they don't seem to vet their users much).  You can unsubscribe from most of it.

It's relatively easy to track a user from one site to another and then use the information harvested to present offers of interest (as in your son's case). There are ways around it all; it just depends on how much effort you want to put forth.

[Ellener]

I knew it! Received one today about a job with Goodwill offering !!6-$25 an hour for tagger-hanger positions handling 150 pieces of clothing an hour; I already knew this is wrong as those positions are always advertised and never filled for long as they pay $8 an hour for really hard work conditions.

I guess loads of people reported them today, the next email sent contained the line 'Texas Job Department values your privacy and is not affiliated with the state of Texas.'

Who does this stuff.