Seun Osewa, I hope you deem this fit to make Homepage.


Lately there has been a sharp increase in scam activities involving recruitment and placements of applicants for all jobs levels and categories. Gone are the days where after sending your CVs to certain job openings, your only fear is being asked to pay sums which may range from N1000-N50,000, now you should be fearing for the dear lives of people close to you as these faceless crooks have graduated to a more productive but unfortunately extremely dangerous from of swindle.

It is called REFERENCE THEFT.

Just as the title implies, they extract the names, phone numbers, email addresses and whatever else you put on your CV and proceed to carrying on all kinds of fraudulent activities they deem profitable with you having no inkling about what’s happening. Referees found on most CVs range from persons holding influential positions in various sectors to just about any uncle, aunt, or friend who has a day job.

Last Tuesday, (the 13th to be precise) the Guardian Newspapers published an advert for a supposed Multinational publishing company. They claimed to be one of the largest publishing houses in the world and where looking to recruit such persons as Secretaries, Advert personnel, Correspondents, Editors, Proof Readers and the like. They stated starting monthly salary as N100,000 (nice move) for all listed positions except that for Editors which was pinned at N180,000. They went further to describe the interview process, which required applicants to go to two hosted sites where they would read and summarise several articles on Forex/Wealth Creation/Money Making Tips etc in a few lines. They were also required to forward their resume with the summarised articles to a Gmail address.

NOW THE SHOCKING BIT.

They further mandated applicants to include the NAMES, PHONE NUMBERS, EMAIL ADDRESSES, FULL HOUSE ADDRESSES (not postal) OF 3 REFEREES on their resume. And yes they claimed to have been seeking applicants from the 36 states of the Federation. Now imagine the number of lives that would be put at various levels of risk including robbery, harassment, and Impersonation if this materialises in full.

The advertorial ended with an interesting caveat. They implored applicants not to pay any fees regarding this particular job and that any person caught soliciting funds would be arrested and locked up behind bars. This move was obviously a frail attempt to add some credibility to the advert. I suspect many who had early read with a bit a suspicion, would give in at this point. The advert was not one of those tiny boxed ones; it was a complete half page advertorial. Talk about investment strategies.

Anybody could be at risk here including you and me. I don’t think applicants actually take permission from these referees first before including their names and what not on their CVs.

Please protect the people that have been bold/kind enough to stand as sureties for you, do not place any personal information about referees on your CV, infact simply replace referee details with the phrase,’ Available upon request’ except in cases where you have to fill online recruitment forms of companies you are sure EXISTS.