Hawaii Habitat for Humanity Association, Inc. has been experiencing a recent sharp increase in people contacting us regarding a job opening and/or offer–it is a scam.
This employment scam involves individuals posing as private board members/hiring managers/employers and inviting them to an interview via text—resulting in an instant hire. These scam “job opportunities” often take the form of “personal or office assistants/receptionist/customer service representative” and frequently ask for personally identifiable information (PII) from individuals. What the scam is attempting to do is get the individual to provide them with personally identifiable information (PII), become unwitting money mules, or to send them money. Once PII is collected, there is a high chance that it could be used in future identity theft (address, SS#, bank information, etc.). This past month, Hawaii Habitat’s name has been used in scam job postings and people have reported seeing a job post through Indeed (www.indeed.com).
If you believe you have been in contact with a job scammer using our name, please follow these next steps:
- Forward all email correspondence to Hawaii Habitat at jean@hawaiihabitat.org or call us at 808.847.7676 to discuss the situation. Hawaii Habitat is available to talk with anyone about any job posting prior to responding to an inquiry.
- Visit our website at www.hawaiihabitat.org to confirm if we have any job opportunities advertised before responding to any job posting.
- Report the job post as fraud
- Do not click on any links in the email regarding an interview
- Contact your local police department
Hawaii Habitat encourages you to:
- Never provide any personal information by email to an employer
- Use a different strong password for each online account
- Change passwords more frequently for accounts with access to confidential data
- Never share passwords with others
- Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online.
- Consult directly with us if you have questions about any job posting tied to “Hawaii Habitat for Humanity Association, Inc” that seems “fishy” or too good to be true.
Job Posting Guidelines and Common Job Scams to Avoid
Over Payment Scams: Overpayment scams are designed to entice you with quick money in advance of doing any work. They are typically advertised as personal assistants, administrative assistants, or book-keeping positions needed to assist with processing checks and orders for supplies, or mystery/secret shopping. The new employee is instructed to deposit the check into the bank, take out their salary, and wire the remaining money to their agents. These fraudulent checks will quickly bounce and leave the new employee out thousands of dollars and facing criminal charges.
Read more about these scams: https://www.khon2.com/action-line/resident-out-thousands-of-dollars-after-employment-scam-bbb-warns-to-beware-fake-job-postings/, Hawaii’s Fraud Prevention & Resource Guide, and https://consumer.ftc.gov/features/scam-alerts
Email Phishing Scams: Online scammers are becoming much more sophisticated in their attempts to lure victims, especially using email links to false websites. It is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between legitimate and counterfeit online sites.
Be cautious if the email or job posting:
- Does not list a company name
- Comes from an email address that doesn’t match the company name (most legitimate companies will use the company domain instead of a Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail account)
- Offers to pay a large amount of money for almost no work
- Offers you a job without ever interacting with you or interviewing you
- Asks you to pay an application fee
- Wants you to transfer money from one account to another
- Offers to send you a check before you do any work
- Asks you to give your credit card or bank account numbers
- Asks for copies of personal documents
- Says you must send payment by wire service or courier
- Offers you a large payment for allowing the use of your bank account – often for depositing checks or transferring money
- Sends you an unexpectedly large check