Alert: Data Entry Job Scam Fraud

Job seekers, please be aware of fraudulent job postings under the Accelerance, Inc. business name on common networking sites and locations. Such postings are a fraudulent impersonation of Accelerance, Inc. and do not represent the business or its recruiting activity in any manner.  Unfortunately, these types of employment scams have been plaguing the job market for several years and have only increased in frequency and severity as several businesses transitioned to remote work during the pandemic. 

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) has issued numerous warnings to both the potential victims and the perpetrators of these kinds of employment scams.  Specifically, the FBI has noted that “[c]yber criminals executing this scam request the same information as legitimate employers, making it difficult to identify a hiring scam until it is too late.”  The FBI further notes the following indicators of this type of employment scam:

• Interviews are not conducted in-person or through a secure video call.
• Interviews are conducted via teleconference applications that use email addresses instead of phone numbers.
• Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains and teleconference applications.
• Potential employers require employees to purchase start-up equipment from the company.
• Potential employers require employees to pay upfront for background investigations or screenings.
• Potential employers request credit card information.
• Potential employers send an employment contract to physically sign asking for personally identifiable information (“PII”).
• Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites.
• Recruiters or managers do not have profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to fit their roles.

Please note that all job postings on the official Accelerance, Inc. website provide specific instructions on how to apply, including legitimate contact and/or URL information for our company. Moreover, Accelerance, Inc. will not hire through text message, social media, or email alone, nor ask for personally identifiable information, such as social security or banking information during the recruitment process. Additionally, Accelerance, Inc. requires in-person completion of an I-9 document and other employment forms upon hire.

When submitting employment applications on any website, job seekers should remain vigilant and always check job ads postings for misspellings, grammatical errors, or incorrect contact information, and verify the legitimacy of company website addresses.  We further recommend that job seekers familiarize themselves with the indicators of a potential employment scam listed above.  We also suggest that job seekers undertake the following steps (as recommended by the FBI) to protect themselves during the job hunt:

• Conduct a web search of the hiring company using the company name only. Results that return multiple websites for the same company (abccompany.com and abccompanyllc.com) may indicate fraudulent job listings.
• Legitimate companies will ask for PII and bank account information for payroll purposes AFTER hiring employees. This information is safer to give in-person. If in-person contact is not possible, a video call with the potential employer can confirm identity, especially if the company has a directory against which to compare employee photos.
• Never send money to someone you meet online, especially by wire transfer.
• Never provide credit card information to an employer.
• Never provide bank account information to employers without verifying their identity.
• Do not accept any job offers that ask you to use your own bank account to transfer their money. A legitimate company will not ask you to do this.
• Never share your Social Security number or other PII that can be used to access your accounts with someone who does not need to know this information.
• Before entering PII online, make sure the website is secure by looking at the address bar. The address should begin with https://, not http://.
• However: criminals can also use https:// to give victims a false sense of security. A decision to proceed should not be based solely upon the use of https://.

If you believe that you are the victim of an employment scam, the FBI recommends taking the following actions:

• Report the activity to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
• Report the activity to the website in which the job posting was listed.
• Report the activity to the company the cyber criminals impersonated.
• Contact your financial institution immediately upon discovering any fraudulent or suspicious activity and direct them to stop or reverse the transactions.
• Ask your financial institution to contact the corresponding financial institution where the fraudulent or suspicious transfer was sent.

If you believe you, or someone you know, is a victim of an employment scam, please visit the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.  Additionally, if you believe you, or someone you know, is a victim of an employment scam involving Accelerance, Inc., please notify us immediately at hr@accelerance.com.