How To Keep Yourself Safe from Scammers

July 27, 2020

How To Keep Yourself Safe from Scammers

We want to help you find a job but we also want you to be safe.

HouseSitter.com has security protocols and algorithms in place to detect spammers as soon as they sign up to our platform. While we review the profiles to ensure they are legitimate and messages are being exchanged with good intentions on a daily basis, some do slip through the cracks. Here are some things you can do to keep yourself safe:

  • Keep the conversation on our platform. The number one sign of a scammer is an individual who asks you to contact them via their personal email or phone number. By communicating with someone off our platform it makes it hard for us to detect potential spammers and keep you safe.

  • Do not give any personal information. Scammers will ask for personal information such as your full name, address, email, phone number, your social security number/social insurance number, your banking information and photocopies of your ID. Do not share this information with anyone as scammers can commit identity theft with this information.

  • Ask to do a phone interview or a video call before meeting the individual. Never take a job without at least doing a phone interview. Hearing and seeing the individual you are communicating with via video is a good way to confirm their identity before meeting them.

  • If you are sent a cheque without an explanation do not cash it. A scammer will send a fake cheque. By depositing it and sending the extra funds to someone, you’ve sent actual money to the other person, and you’re on the hook for the funds. After some time, the bank will see that the money you deposited doesn’t exist and will remove the amount from your bank account, but you’ve already sent some of it, and maybe have spent some of your portion. So the bank turns to you for the missing money. This is called money laundering – turning fake money into real money.

  • If it seems too good to be true, it likely is. If an individual offers a much higher salary than normally offered in your field, or sends a cheque without explanation, this is likely a scam.

At HouseSitter.com we always encourage you to reach out to us if you suspect someone that has contacted you is a scammer. You can report a scammer through your inbox by clicking on the flag in the upper right hand corner of the message you wish to report. We take reports on members very seriously and we will make your report a priority. The online security of all of our members is very important to us.

For more information on how to protect yourself, review a compilation of articles that we update regularly.