The Coca Cola Company has posted a scam alert about a site that uses the URL of www.instanthumanrecources.com posting shady work from home job listings by claiming to be unauthorized representatives of Coca Cola. The victim receives an email which requires the recipient to click a link in the message for completing a job application that allows you to work from home for Coca Cola. You are required to put in your personal information like social security numbers and copy of driver’s license. This process of stealing your financial and personal information through fraudulent practices is called phishing.
The phishing website has been designed to appear legitimate as they include images of the Coca Cola Company, their photographs and trademarks. According to Coca Cola, in a few instances, the scammers have contacted the victims, claiming to hire them for personal information to cash fraudulent checks and send them the money. Coca Cola is presently investigating the situation with the responsible authorities and suggest that if you have already provided them with personal details, you should immediately put a stop to all the communications with the source and get in touch with the federal authorities to proceed with protecting your personal information as well as privacy.
What the email messages include is an opt-out link in the message. This should not be used as it tells the sender that they have reached a valid email address and someone is reading the incoming emails. If they do not want to hound you, they will put you in their phishing database for the other websites to pester you. You can block the incoming emails from the organization or create a filter in your email client to delete them permanently or forwarding them to trash. While posting your résumé online, even with reputed career search websites, you may expose yourself to work at home scams.
While the reputed companies will tell you that they will not share your personal details and information, some phishing operators can pose as legitimate operators, registering with the job search engines and retrieving your personal information. Hence, if you are to disclose your personal details online, the first thing to note is to know who you are dealing with. There are lots of enthusiasts who are looking for starting a home based business, and this makes them potential targets for the fraudulent operators. Hence, if you belong to that group of victims, you should be ready with your homework. |
