Watch Out

Due to a disability, I took early retirement 2 years ago. Dying of boredom, I decided to look for something I could do remote that didn't involve telemarketing. I've got 40 years experience in the IT field and Administration strongly interspersed between all that. The Admin is what I was stressing on Career Builder, as I didn't want to deal with the stress of IT.

You can probably guess what kind of notifications I got -- basically all IT based. However, there were a few Admin based. Followed up on a few of those and a couple looked really good. Interviewed with one, and an offer letter followed, which I accepted. Sounds good, right?

Turned out it was a scam. I'm so disheartened and depressed now I wish I never started this hunt.

When this first began, I checked things out via the BBB, did research via Google on career hunter scams, etc., and pulled up nothing. But my personal hackles got raised by some things that were said yesterday, and I went back online and did a search on this specific company with the word "scam" following it. That led me to a Facebook page and another couple of pages with information that matched exactly what had raised my curiosity. Finally, it led me to a page with a message from the company, itself, stating that people had been purportedly representing the company offering jobs and they were *not* with the company. That only by filling out an application on their website would you be considered for a position (which, btw, I consider to be very spoof-able).

Luckily, I "caught" this scam before they scammed me out of any money. They wanted me to send $350 for a piece of time tracking software. But I didn't find out before filling out a W-4, and I'm not sure how to protect myself against this. I'm open to suggestions. I'm also open to how to safely hunt for a job in this deadly age we're living in today.

Thanks... Sandy