Fortune Magazine Anne Fisher featured our Facebook identity Theft Protection Guide as part of his most recent column "Ask Annie" that highlighted the recent trend of identity thieves victimize job seekers.
Job seekers are usually willing to provide detailed personal information to a potential employer in the interview process because, as Fisher points out in his column, that person could very well offer employment . However, what makes the job seekers a potentially ripe target for scammers who pose as hiring managers in an attempt to commit identity theft.
So how can you protect yourself? Fisher provides a series of recommendations, including the following tips on how to deal with a request for a phone interview for very personal information such as the number or date of birth Social Security:
instead of missing data, politely ask for the phone number or e-mail the address of the person and say that you come back to it shortly. Then call the service of the company's human resources, is whether the person works there, and ask if they usually ask these vital statistics when planning an interview. Most likely, the answers to these two questions will be "no."
This alarming trend in the theft of job applicant's identity also shows the depths that identity thieves will go in order to find victims. As always, we recommend that readers consider and protection service against identity theft. You can read our protection against identity theft services reviews and comparisons for more.