My mother sent her resume to scammers - what are the risks

Hi all,
My mother applied for a position she found in our city newspaper, with a company claiming to be Santos Ltd. out of Austrailia. Santos is a legitimate company and the scammer used names of actual staff at Santos. But when they offered her a job without even doing an interview I told her to stop communication immediately. I contacted Santos Ltd. and of course they are not hiring in our city, or in any other city in the United States.

It was easy for me to immediately spot these people as scammers - the emails they sent her were unprofessional in context and filled with errors. However, she did not believe me until they offered her the position without an interview and had already had multiple email communications with them - including sending her resume. It included her work experience and contact information - nothing more. Is she at risk for any future identify fraud from these people?

Thank you ~

The risk for identity theft is low. This type of scammer is typically after quick cash. She hasn't given the necessary information to access bank accounts, credit, etc. The truth is, scammers can get as much information on thousands of people from resumes posted online and information on sites such as linkedin.

She will, however, likely see an increase in scam offers, so she needs to be extra vigilant in that regard.

If she was in contact with them by email, can you post some of the emails sent by the fake Santos company in your other thread? (Remove your mother's info first). It would help to have their scripts and email addresses posted, and to see if there are any fake sites or domains to be killed.

Yes - thank you - I will post a copy of one of the emails on the Employment Scam thread.

As long as your mother only sent them her basic tv show reviews information like work history, name, address etc. the risk of identity theft should be low. As said above: this information is freely available on the internet, of millions of people.

If she sent her SSN or any other 'confidential' information, the risk could be higher.

Your mother should be OK, these groups want to scam people by using their bank accounts to deposit stolen or false checks plus utilise their home address to accept goods from other scams. But she should be careful from now on and wary of any new emails or phone calls.

The group has also used these email addresses for their scam [email protected] and [email protected]

Nice work Shelby in alering your mother.

I know that my mother is trusting and doesn't believe people are dishonest and I had a lot of trouble making her understand the risks out there. Older people are more readily targeted and she gets daily phone calls offering scams, so not having a pc is no safeguard.

The major defence against scams and scammer is educating people about them and the more people who take the trouble to warn others, the more reasily the word wll be spread.

You're a scamwarner by nature.