Travel Nurses Inc. provided this article.
There are so many ways travelers can find assignments and housing. New platforms are becoming available, and with that comes new ways to be scammed online. But how do you know what’s real and what’s an online scam? This blog post will uncover where you could encounter online scammers, how to spot them, and how to steer clear of their traps.
Tips for avoiding online scams:
Facebook has always been a place for recruiters and travelers to share information in groups. There are Facebook groups for housing, jobs, and general information about traveling. However, a lot of groups have issues with spam and scammers now. To avoid getting scammed in Facebook groups, here are a few helpful tips for avoiding online scams:
- Look for groups that require you to answer questions to be admitted. This is not a fool-proof way to avoid hackers. But if the group is not public, then it will weed out some people who should not be in the group.
- If you see a job posted by a recruiter, go to the recruiter’s Facebook page. They should have the name of their agency on their Facebook page. If you do not see any agency information, this could be a red flag.
- If you don’t recognize the name of the agency a recruiter is with, do a quick Google search for it. Check out the reviews and look for the job postings on their website. If you don’t see any reviews or jobs, this could be another red flag.
- If something looks too good to be true, it likely is. For the most part, agencies should have relatively similar rates for positions. They might be within $100-$200 of each other, but if you see a quote for a position that is $500+ more than other agencies, it could be a trap. Scammers know what recruiters include in posts, and they know what travelers are looking for.
- Look for contact information on the recruiter’s post. At Travel Nurses, Inc., our recruiters list their name, our agency, their phone number, and their email address when they post in groups.
- Do not send information over Facebook. If a recruiter sends you a direct message and asks you to start sending them information about yourself, ask them for their agency’s information and verify that they work for a credible agency. You can ask for their agency’s website, email address, and phone number, and ask them to call you with more information about a job.
- On housing groups, ask for a phone number to call the host. You can also ask them to send you more information about the property they are renting via email or ask to see the listing on a platform like Furnished Finder, Landing, or Air BnB.
Phone calls
If you sign up for platforms like Vivian, BetterNurse, or RNVIP, be prepared to get calls from recruiters. These platforms offer subscriptions to agencies as lead generation sources. So you might find that you start getting an influx of calls from agencies you have never heard of before.
Unfortunately, online scammers can get their hands on this information, too. To avoid getting scammed, you can try doing the following:
- Download a call fielding app like Robokiller or Truecaller. Sometimes, your phone carrier will also offer fielding service. This will help cut back on the number of spam calls you get in general.
- If a recruiter calls you, do not give them personal information over the phone. Credible agencies will have a more formal way for you to submit documents that contain your personal information.
- You can always let calls go to voicemail and call the recruiter back. Recruiters from credible agencies will leave you a voicemail and might also text and email you to follow up. A scammer might not leave a voicemail or a callback number.
Emails
One of the most common ways people are scammed is through email. This is because it’s easy for scammers to find a recruiter’s contact information from their LinkedIn, Facebook page, or their agency’s website to use to mask their own identity. There are a few ways you can avoid getting scammed via email:
- Open emails on your laptop instead of your phone. When you are on the go, it’s easy to check emails from the palm of your hand on your phone, but it is harder to verify links from your phone.
- If you see a link in an email, verify that the link matches its description. You can do this by hovering your mouse over the link to see the link address. If you see it’s supposed to be a link for benefits information, but the link address doesn’t have benefits or the agency in the link, then it’s likely a scam. Oftentimes, clicking links makes you vulnerable to online scams because the link is giving hackers access to a lot of your personal information.
- Since scammers can easily find recruiters’ contact information, it would be easy for them to create an email address that looks like it’s coming from a recruiter. The easiest way to spot the difference is the email domain (the part after the @). If you notice that the email domain is Gmail, yahoo, or AOL, then this is not a recruiter.
- Look for spelling and grammatical errors. If there are random words that aren’t capitalized, extra spaces, or words missing in sentences, then this is likely a scam.
- If someone asks you for gift cards as a form of payment over the phone or in an email, it’s a scam.
It’s important to be alert and to have a healthy level of skepticism when you are traveling. The biggest piece of advice is to find a reputable agency, like Travel Nurses, Inc., and stick with it. Travel Nurses, Inc. has been around for more than 35 years, they are JCAHO certified, they were the first agency to partner with the DAISY award, and they were listed as a top-rated healthcare agency on Great Recruiters. These are the types of things to look for when searching for a reputable agency.
We hope this article on ways to avoid online scams has been helpful. Have you ever been a victim of online scams? Want to share your story or advice for avoiding online scams? Comment your advice or tips below.
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