Scam Alert

The recruitment industry is no different to other industries in terms of being targeted by fraudsters looking to exploit businesses and individuals.

One of the scams that is targeted at recruiters is this:

You’ll be contacted by a new client who is looking to take on some highly paid contractors, sometimes with quite specialist skills. By coincidence, within a relatively short period of time, you’ll also be contacted by some contractors who seemingly, by sheer coincidence have exactly the right skill set for your new client. Seems too good to be true? Well, it just might be.

In the scam, the client is fake, as are the contractors. While you think you are supplying your new highly paid contractors to your new client, with work being signed off – there actually is no client and no work being done. Of course, with contractors being paid weekly on high day rates and the client being billed sometime after that, it’s possible to pay out huge amounts before it becomes clear that the ‘client’ isn’t going to pay, because there actually is no client.

Another variation of this scam is where a new client comes to you asking you to payroll a number of contractor that they have already found.

We are contacted from time to time by members who have either avoided or fallen foul of such scams. While we can’t usually name the parties involved (unless they have been verified through official means) we want to remind members to be vigilant and aware of these risks. Taking steps to vet new clients and contractors thoroughly and being aware of the methods used by fraudsters is key.