There has been a recent increase in fake job postings coming in via campus email, including some that are sent using compromised Caltech email accounts. These scam messages often advertise for "personal or office assistants" and if a student responds, ultimately the scammers will ask them to purchase items for their business, deposit checks for the business, or negotiate sales between a vendor and a business. The scammers' goal is to get the student to deposit a fraudulent check -- one that will eventually bounce -- and purchase items or send personal checks with their own money. Scammers also want to collect personal information that can be used in future identity theft attempts (address, social security number, bank account information, etc.). Over the summer, the number of such scam job postings has greatly increased and students around the country have reported being contacted through their LinkedIn, Facebook, and university email accounts.
Caltech job openings are not advertised in mass mailings to campus. If you receive an email message claiming to be about a job opening for a personal assistant or similar position, be suspicious, and if it appears to have come from a Caltech sender, it is likely fraudulent. If in doubt, you are always welcome to contact IMSS about any suspicious or questionable email message, by contacting Information Security (security@caltech.edu) or the IMSS Help Desk (help@caltech.edu). If you are contacted by an outside organization about a job, the Career Center (career@caltech.edu) can help you confirm that the opportunity is legitimate.
Here are some tips to help you identify fake jobs.
Common Job Scams Targeting College Students:
- Personal or administrative assistant
- Mystery shoppers
- Envelope stuffing from home
- Repackaging or shipping from home
- Issuing checks/check processing from home
- A variety of other scams where a student is asked to pay for certification, training materials, or equipment with promise of reimbursement
The Federal Trade Commission has additional information about how to recognize many kinds of job scams.
To protect your own account from unauthorized access, sign up for Caltech multi-factor authentication using Duo.
Review Information Security's tips for recognizing scam email messages.