Or day, I asked my father
about the first job he

ever had. The answer I got
was pretty shocking. For eight
hours a day, he stood sweating
in front of an open furnace,
shoveling piles of wastepaper
into the flames. He got two
10-minute coffee breaks, and
an unpaid half-hour lunch
break per day. He lost so much
weight doing this job that his
boss gave him a bottle of salt
pills to help him get through
the day without passing out. It
was, by all accounts, a wretched
job that no one would want to
do—but at the very least, his
employer was honest about the
conditions of the work.

We live in an instantaneous
society where life moves
at a breakneck pace. Being
unemployed for even a short
time is often untenable,
especially in a city with
Vancouver’s extravagant
living expenses. People need
work, but there are more
people than there are jobs
available. So what’s a financially
stressed, unemployed, recent
college graduate with limited
qualifications to do? We look
to the Internet, of course,
where everything must be true

offers abound, but how can we
know if the job being offered is }
legitimate?

 

 

 

Historically, many online
job ads have targeted recent
or aspiring immigrants, often
in the form of poorly worded
“hotel scams” offering work
in international hotels while
requesting advance payments
from the applicants in order to
pay for work visas. Today, the
growing number of graduates
in need of work has opened up
a new target demographic to
aspiring con artists the world
over.

Consider the fact that
on March 18, YVR.ca—
the official website of the
Vancouver Airport—released
a public warning regarding
an employment scam: “The
fraud scheme sends individuals
letters in the mail informing
them they are the successful
candidate of a (fake) job
posting at Vancouver Airport
Authority. Individuals are then
asked to send their personal
documents,” said the Vancouver
Airport Authorities on the
webpage. These victims were
contacted by their banks within
days because their credit cards
had been hijacked.

There is a seemingly
infinite number of false or
misleading ads out there,
and it’s not always easy to tell
the real opportunities from
the fakes until after you’ve

 

been defrauded. Thieves

 

can impersonate anyone with
little fear of reprisal because
they operate from foreign
countries and can kill their fake
webpages instantly if they think
they’re being tracked. Getting
INTERPOL involved is useless,
because the scammer will
be on to their tenth next con
before authorities even have
their first meeting about what
to do. The victims are usually
disadvantaged: sick, injured, on
welfare, unemployed, students
in debt, or residents of low
socioeconomic areas. For them,
desperation overrides common
sense. This style of employment
crime is relatively heinous—the
financial equivalent of kicking
someone while they're down.

The signs are there if
you know what to look for. A
general rule of thumb to follow
is the trite but true “if it seems
too good to be true, it probably
is.” When you find a job that
offers an enticing amount of
money for purely nominal
work, be sure to use that
wonderful computing machine
of yours to find out if people
are typically paid that much for
stuffing envelopes. Speaking
of which, jobs that require you
to buy your own materials are
probably best avoided.

No experience necessary,
no application necessary,
and if they’re ready to hire

 

Hh ARTISTS NEEDED!

APPLY TODAY!

Employment scams exploit the inexperienced
By Adam Tatelman, Staff Writer

you instantly, no questions
asked; you should probably ask
yourself why they'd be willing
to do so. If the employment
agent distances themselves
from you—insisting on Skype
interviews, or perhaps using

a non-company email address
(Yahoo, Gmail, and like)—
that’s another big red flag.
Something’s fishy if you're
required to give up personal
information such as your social
insurance number, address,
date of birth, or credit card
number. And if you're being
asked to advance any sort of
fee under the guise of out-of-
pocket or travel expenses, you
should know it’s a scam. Real
employers will never ask you to
pay for a job.

Now, let’s assume you've
applied fora job because it
passed the above criteria.

You should be safe, right?
Unfortunately, many legal
establishments get away

with sub-standard—even
atrocious—treatment of their
staff, so you must remain
skeptical. The first thing you
must ascertain is whether

you are an employee or an
independent contractor, as
this will determine your rights.
According to the Ministry

of Labour’s Employment
Standards Act (ESA), employees
are entitled by law to have