Watch Out! Don’t apply to this fake Amazon work-at-home job
Working from home sounds like a great idea. Not having to deal with traffic is a major plus, and if you have to take car of children or parents, you can have a more flexible schedule.
The concept is even better when you get to work for a great company, but not all offers are what they seem and there are plenty of scams out there. Scammers will even pose as high-profile companies to try and lure you in.
Case in point, a job posting that looks like it’s coming from Amazon. It’s not! So beware!
Instead, it’s a scam
The way it works is you get a phone call offering a work-from-home opportunity that can be accessed by logging into amzjobs.org. The site, which is not at all affiliated with Amazon, says workers can make $500 a day with just a few hours of work. Here’s where we go back to the saying “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!”
The call comes from a number that is flagged as being questionable, which is the first clue. But if you glossed over that or just got the message via voicemail, you may not notice.
Once you log on, the site provides ample reason for why this is a good idea, even going so far as to say some of their best employees were doubters-turned-believers. After all that, you are told there are three steps to join, one of which has you fill out a form in which you reveal plenty of information.
That is what they are after — your information — as this is a classic phishing expedition.
Don’t fall for this one
As far as scams go, this one is pretty easy to identify, if you know what to look for.
The URL at the top of the page is not close to anything you would see from Amazon and throughout the page there are countless formatting and grammatical errors. There are also countless questionable claims and statements, which should at least give one pause.
But really, there are a number of red flags on the site, like making sure to let you know that spots in the program are limited and if you want to land the job, you better apply fast.
That is designed to get you to skim through the rest of the page while you rush to sign up, in the meantime ignoring the signs that would convince you to at least question what you are doing. Hat Tip to Clark.com for giving us some of the details about this scam.
If you fell for it
If you did follow through and provide the information, you will want to make sure to monitor all of your accounts closely. Monitor your banking statements closely and if you gave credit card information, be sure to cancel the cards.
But if you do want a job with Amazon…
Just because this is not a real Amazon job site does not mean there are no opportunities to work for the company. If you want, visit www.amazon.jobs in order to start the process of looking.
The actual Amazon jobs page looks like this: