Beware: Scammers are Preying on Green Job Seekers

“Green jobs” has become quite a buzz phrase lately, with millions of people who have either already lost their jobs or are nervous about their futures trying to learn more about the opportunities that are available. Unfortunately, scammers are all too eager to make a buck off the trend. Research shows that internet green job scams are growing, both to take financial advantage of green job seekers and to gather information that could be useful for identity theft or spam mailings.

So, where to turn when it’s so tough to tell the difference between the real deal and a scam? The Live Green, Live Smart Institute has launched list of the best green job sites. They vetted over 123 sites and were surprised by what they found.

From the Live Green, Live Smart press release:

Several sites asked individuals to pre-register before granting them access to hundreds or thousands of green jobs. In the process they were asked to fill out resumes that asked for information ranging from a drivers license number to a social security number, date and place of birth and other very private information. In the wrong hands this is information that could be easily used to create a new identity. Two of the sites were gone when the researcher checked a second time, a common technique among scam artists, gather information and move on.

In other cases the sites offered jobs that either did not exist or had been filled and were never removed from the posting boards. According to Peter Lytle, Executive Director and founder of the Institute: “We posted our own resumes on various sites and with various companies only to find out that the posted positions either never existed or had been filled months ago, most of the time we received no response and often we ended up getting put on a spam or pornographic e-mail list.” ” We found a large number of jobs that said they were green, but in reality were jobs that were not in the green and environmental sectors. Examples would be a Life Insurance sales position listed as Director of Environmental and Risk Sales Products; it was really only selling life insurance to your relatives.”

Don’t fall prey to scammers – get a full list of trustworthy green job sites at the Live Green, Live Smart website.

Check out EarthFirst’s Green Jobs 101: How to Snag Eco-Employment for more info about determining which job is right for you, training and applying.

Link [PRWeb] + [LiveGreenLiveSmart]

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