False honchos dupe job aspirants, offer jobs for money

While these entities, including HCL Technologies and a central government agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, are putting up guards after coming to know about such frauds, many aspiring employees are said to have got duped to the scheme of fraudsters, who demand some security money in lieu of employment.

After coming to know about some fraudsters trying to dupe the prospective candidates seeking jobs, NTPC has clarified that it “has not authorised any agency or firm for recruiting candidates.”

“It has come to our notice that some unscrupulous individuals/recruitment organisations are trying to dupe candidates in NTPC by sending e-mails for depositing money in specified banks,” NTPC said. The company has also sought the matter to be reported to it or the police in the case of suspicion about the source and credentials of those claiming to be NTPC’s representatives.

Similarly, HCL has found about unscrupulous individuals/placement agencies having been enticing candidates with job opportunities at HCL for a fee. HCL Senior Vice-President & HR Head (India Operations) Ravi Shankar said, “Our website has a special section on fraudulent recruiters under careers segment. This section not only warns the job aspirants of these unscrupulous individuals/ placement agencies but also lays down clearly how these frauds can be identified.”

Industry campaign

He noted that such mails often have broken English or even grammatical mistakes.
“We are also asking industry bodies to create a campaign on this at the industry level,” he added.

The modus operandi of these fraudsters are generally similar, wherein they get the details about their targets from the job websites and then send them job offers, disguising themselves either as the companies or their representatives.

Claiming to be the Ministry of Agriculture’s research arm, an organisation by the name of ‘Central Agricultural Research Centre (CARC)’ went to the extent of conducting an entrance test after advertising job openings and announced results on its website, which had pictures of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.However, the fraudulent activity later caught the eyes of the actual research arm of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
Internet security firm Trend Micro recently found hackers are attacking corporate job sites and also setting up fake ones for collecting applicants’ personal information.