Cyber scam defrauds job seekers

Kenyan job seekers are losing thousands of shillings to cyber criminals. Statistics on those conned are not readily available, but observers say they could be in their thousands.

“We are not talking of the Sh500. That was for sometime popular with the M-Pesa conmen. Today’s job cheats are asking for tens of thousands of shillings,” said Harun Ambenje, the chief executive of TalentRecruit Limited, a subsidiary of UK’s Human TalentRecruit, that operates through subsidiaries, partners and affiliates globally.

Saccos also targeted

Mr Ambenje said many young people who graduate every year from universities are most gullible to tricksters. But a leading sacco society had also been conned in the same manner, he says.

The fraudsters are advertising phony vacancies in newspapers and on FM stations. The advertisements direct job applicants to websites.

Common job websites and blogs such as Kenyan Jobs Blogspot, Career Point, Brighter Monday, BestJobs, DailyjobsinKenya, Homejobz, KenyanVacancies, Myafricancareer and many others have all been caught in the muddle, with the criminals using them to market their “vacancies”.

The Sunday Nation traced some of the recent victims who explained how they were lured into the trap and ended up paying thousands of shillings for non-existent jobs.

They requested anonymity over security concerns. One of them is Elizabeth who learnt in July that Planet Action Fund, an international NGO in the UK, had a vacancy for an administrative officer for operations it was planning to start in Kisumu.

Elizabeth, a jobless human resource and administration professional who has worked for several years, saw the opening at “Planet Action Fund” as a God-send opportunity to land a dream job.

“I checked and found that they had a website that looked genuine. I then applied for the job online and a few days later received a reply via email that said I had been ‘pre-shortlisted’ to proceed further in the selection process,” she said.

The position promised a monthly salary of up to Sh145,000 and other attractive perks like holidays every six weeks and generous field allowances.

The organisation gave 25 Church Street, BB1 5AF Blackburn, United Kingdom as its headquarters, complete with telephone and fax numbers.

That very month, the organisation put up on Zebrajobs website in Tanzania a call for applications for an administrative officer – clerical position based in Arusha with a package of $2,450 (Sh208,250) per month.

Elizabeth was asked to fill out an attached “entry assessment form” supposedly for new staff joining the organisation and provide scores for her latest “International Psychometric Score (IPS) test” or “Psychometric Cognitive Ability Test (CAT)”.

The assessment was to establish her personal background while the CAT and IPS are internationally recognised aptitude tests designed to assess a candidate’s general academic ability, perceptual ability and manual dexterity.

But it is in the last two tests where the catch lies. The calling organisation suggests names of “consultants” near the applicants’ country (for Elizabeth’s case in Nairobi) to conduct the CAT and IPS tests.

Provided links would then lead to other websites for the purported consultants.

“To make it look more believable, they’ll even give you the option of choosing other accredited IPS invigilators,” said Elizabeth who settled for one of the “consultants” suggested by “Planet Action Fund”.

The Sunday Nation gathered that the commonly used CAT and IPS “consultants” include Dopra International (www.dopra.net), Tumda Online Certification (tumda.net), Dario HR (www.dario.com), and QicHr Consultants (www.qichr.com).

Dopra International prides itself as “providing people assessments, book keeping, accounting services and psychometric testing which empower business leaders to transform the performance of their teams and deliver an immediate impact on their organisation”.

The firm claims to be working with 32,000 companies and 250,000 trained Dopra users worldwide with over 1.5 million assessments every year. It gives its address as “Court 67, Machinde Road Kitusuru, Nairobi, Kenya”.

A physical check revealed this address is non-existent. These phony companies are variously used by job advertising organisations such as “Giving Hand Fund”, “Planet Action Fund”, “Global Fund Against Poverty” and others that appear to ride on poverty or the Millennium Development Goals themes as bait.

All are likely to be headquartered in cities in UK, the US, Canada, Switzerland and Australia. Shortlisted candidates are required to obtain their CAT and IPS scores and send electronic copies back before a certain deadline.

According to Elizabeth, the cost of these tests ranged between Sh6,500 and Sh9,500. The monies could be paid through a bank or M-Pesa accounts provided.

“You will have the option of doing the tests at their offices or online. To offer you the temptation of doing it online, they’ll usually have their “offices” in some dead-end corner in Kitisuru or some lane behind the Embassy of Czechoslovakia or some other Eastern European country that cannot be easily located,” she said.

“I have to admit that the conmen have gone a notch higher than before when they were only demanding Sh300 for ‘medical tests’ from innocent job seekers.”

Elizabeth paid Sh6,480 by M-Pesa to Tumda Communication for a CAT test on July 12 in which she scored an impressive 86 points and even received a certificate.

She learnt she had been conned when neither a Mr Michael Dena of Tumda nor a Colleen Walker who signed as the Operations and Personnel Manager for Planet Action Fund replied to her emails.

Telephone calls to their lines in the UK went unanswered. The M-Pesa number Elizabeth sent the money to showed the recipient as Michael Sanga.

She said she was not keen to report the suspect who received the money to police or the mobile phone provider. Soon she stopped a relative, Camilla, who had also applied for a liaison job advertised through Career Point by “Giving Fund Hand”, before she was conned.

“I was alarmed when I realised that I was required to pay some money for the test,” said Camilla. The two have since posted an alert on social media to warn others.