Prerequisite Job Course

Prerequisite Course for a Job Scam: How it Works

You finally get your dream job opportunity! You've posted your resume online and a representative of a great company calls you and invites you for an interview, which is announced to be part of a long hiring process. The salary is the biggest you've ever had and the pressure is high. You have to dress up for your Skype meeting tomorrow as you're having an interview with one of the HR managers. Fingers crossed.

The interview goes well, but in the end, you feel that the manager has some reservations about you. He tells you that you are potentially a good candidate, but in order to move into the second phase of the interview, he recommends that you take a prerequisite course, called something fancy as well (usually an acronym). Disappointing, but you really want that job.

This is where the victims fall for the scam. Desperate that they might lose a fantastic opportunity while others already have that course under their belt, they agree to pay a couple of hundred dollars for a course that doesn't exist. They register online for the course, which is supposed to start in three weeks, sign the papers, pay the fee and go ahead with their day.

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What happens is: scammers get the victims to sign a contract – with an online signature – before the registration for the course. Somewhere in there, they add a disclaimer. It is specified that if within this time another applicant is successful, the person who registered for the course loses the fee. As you can guess, there is no course, as the crooks call the applicant to inform that someone else has been selected for the job.

The victims typically are too embarrassed to report the scam, as they know they have signed an agreement. The scam has been very prevalent in many sectors, including medical, nursing, law, psychology, dental, mechanical, engineering and biology. 

Job Prerequisite Course Scam: How to Avoid

Just as in many other cases, never pay for a job; the job should pay you. In reality, scammers impersonate the HR people and use the names of the companies. They even show the website of the organization so the victims really feel they are about to be hired by a great employer. There were cases when criminals used the real names of the HR managers, taken from the official website of the company.

When in doubt, call the phone number that is listed on the website, not the one the interviewers provide you. Also, you need to make sure the site is real, too. Beware!

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Prerequisite Course Scam: How To Report

Warn your family and friends about the Prerequisite Course Scam by sharing it on social media using the buttons provided. You can also officially report the scammers to the Federal Trade Commission using the link below:

Report To The FTC Here

How To Prevent Identity Theft and More

If you want to be the first to find out the most notorious scams every week, feel free to subscribe to the Scam Detector newsletter here. You'll receive periodic emails – we promise not to spam. Meanwhile, educate yourself with some other fraud-related articles right under this paragraph, so that you can protect yourself in many other aspects and niches. Last but not least, use the Comments section below to expose other scammers.

Here are some must-reads for the end:

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