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There is a new scam in town, and it’s fast gaining discipleship. Rich Curriculum Vitae (CV) has left many students scratching their heads, either as victims or culprits.
Scammers steal CVs and other identity documents from established translators in order to get jobs they are not qualified for.
On landing the jobs, the scammers outsource the work to those they believe are qualified for the jobs, who interestingly are never paid for their efforts.
Most scammers use local job websites where they contact potential candidates promising to involve them in lucrative projects, or asking to include them in their database.
Unknown to them, the unscrupulous men (and women) will be busy harvesting their CVs, replacing their email addresses (and sometimes names).
They proceed to impersonate them, steal their potential clients and ruin their reputation. This can, at worst, spiral into identity theft.
An experiment by the BBC involving a fake website lured 107 people into submitting their CVs, full of personal information that could have led to identity theft. Of the CVs, 61 contained enough information to apply for a credit card.
The fake firm placed a job advert in a British national newspaper seeking office managers, and inviting people to apply by sending in their CVs to the website. Although 107 people did so, a quick search of the website could have shown that it was in fact a fake operation.
Speaking to Campus Vibe, HR practitioner Perminus Wainaina of Corporate Staffing, said CV theft was common amongst people who are not confident of their own ability, or had no ability. However, he said, it was simple to detect.
“There are sniffer softwares that can nowadays tell genuine CVs from fake ones. Also, HR officers are trained to identify lies,” said Wainaina.
Wainaina added that most of the CVs which were stolen were the ones mostly available on university and company websites, especially those of brilliant people who are not well known amongst the locals in the country.
“You cannot apply for a job you’re not qualified for. You’ll eventually be exposed,” he said.
