RECRUITERS PLEASE BE AWARE OF THIS!

We think we have been contacted by a very similar (if not, the same) scam and from the start something just didn't smell right.

I would hate for any other recruitment businesses to fall foul of this so here's a summary of what happened.

We were contacted out of the blue by a London based business to say that they found us online (that does happen!) and had some vacancies coming up so they were looking to speak to multiple agencies about becoming a recruitment partner.

We organised a Teams call and none of the 3 contacts on the call turned their cameras on (again, it happens, but very odd if you're genuinely looking to build a partnership)

They told us about their plans to recruit for a number of vacancies which fell into our areas of expertise. We agreed terms and sent across our Terms of Business.

We had been given a limited company name which is a legit business on Companies House and had a website.

But some things just didn't feel right.

They promised job specs which eventually came through a week or so later. They just didn't seem relevant to how they had described their business.

Their website was poor and lacking in detail, especially for a business with a large turnover and profit (as per Companies House)

They only had 1 employee on LinkedIn which was totally bizarre for a professional services company that, so they told us, had 75+ staff.

When we questioned them about this on the call, they said their servers were down!

Their one employee on LinkedIn had an image. We reverse image searched using Google and it was for a totally different person who had their own Wikipedia page.

We couldn't find any information on their supposed President listed on their website (the Chief Exec listed was indeed the person listed on Companies House but presumably knows nothing about this as he's based in Brazil).

Apparently the scam would have eventually led to us supplying temps (this was their next phase of recruitment so they said) and payrolling staff but never receiving payment through.

Luckily, we would never have done this and we have recognised this is a scam near the start of the process so haven't wasted time recruiting for their fictitious vacancies.

But for any other recruitment businesses out there who receive a call out of the blue from a potential new client, please be wary!

Check the company out thoroughly on every available channel.

Never agree to payroll staff given directly if you've never worked with a company before (we're not banks or lines of credit FFS!).

If you smell a rat, call it out and see how they react.

I'm just waiting to hear back from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation as to whether we are to report this to the police & if we should publicise the details they provided.

If you think you have been contacted by this same set of idiots, drop me a message [email protected] & I'll share the company name/contact details they've provided.

#recruitment #scam #scammers

More details can be found on the REC (who we subscribe to) here

Share