Scammers relentlessly target us with job offers, deals and other items that seem too good to be true. That’s because they are. These seemingly fantastic opportunities are, in reality, traps to access our personal information while costing us money and peace of mind.
“Job offers” are regularly emailed directly to individuals, often with no interview required and with pressure to act quickly. Scams like that share some common red flags:
- The email comes from a non-Penn State email address, which you can see by hovering over the sender’s name.
- The position is not posted in Workday’s Career Hub or for students, in Nittany Lion Careers.
- The email requests communication through Telegram, WhatsApp, text messaging or other non-standard channels.
- The sender asks for personal or financial information before an interview or advance payment for training or materials that will be reimbursed later.
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These are all tell-tale signs of scammers on the prowl.
If you receive a suspicious email like this, do not reply to the sender, click on any links, or open any attachments. Instead, please forward it to phishing@psu.edu so our Information Security team can evaluate the message and block it from reaching other unsuspecting users. If you have already responded to a fake job offer, block or delete all email, text, or app messages from the sender in addition to notifying phishing@psu.edu.
An example of a typical job scam:
