The Metropolitan Police are urging job boards to advertise the SAFERjobs free, safer job search service on their job sites to advise job seekers how to get help should they encounter scams through the job search. With scams on the rise, the Metropolitan Police are urging job boards to proactively protect the reputation of the sector and show their commitment to job seeker safety.
SAFERjobs, a non-profit joint law enforcement organisation, advise thousands of job seekers a week and now feature on over 10 major UK job boards all demonstrating their commitment to job seeker safety. This includes the DWP's Universal Jobmatch featuring SAFERjobs on the home and search pages bringing over 10,000 job seekers to the SAFERjobs site a week. All job boards who feature the safer job search campaign also appear on the SAFERjobs site.
The volume of job scams continues to rise with recent Action Fraud statistics showing the average job scam costing job seekers £4000, though the most common scam defrauds job seekers of £100.
Job scams are often unintentionally facilitated through job boards and common scams include pay for training, pay for police checks, premium rate phone scams, money laundering, and identity theft. SAFERjobs Chair, Keith Rosser, said "we aim to reach out to more job seekers so that in future we get more reports of frauds before they happen and therefore prevent job seekers from being scammed. In January and February 2015 alone we saved £26,000 of fraud but unfortunately we still received reports of fraud after money had exchanged hands".
Following last year's BBC Fake Britain coverage of job scams, BBC Rip Off Britain and ITV have confirmed they are making 3 job scam programmes to air later this year as the rise in job scams continues. Rosser continued, "what's important for the industry is to show their willingness to protect their customers and work with other bodies such as law enforcement, to tackle this growing problem and protect their reputation."
The Metropolitan Police and SAFERjobs have a set text for job boards (see below) to use on their sites to raise awareness and show their commitment to protecting their customers.
"To stay safe in your job search we recommend that you visit SAFERjobs, a non-profit, joint industry and law enforcement organisation working to combat job scams. Visit www.safer-jobs.com for information on common scams and to get free, expert advice for a safer job search."