WARNING ON ONLINE RECRUITMENT FRAUDS

PRESS RELEASE

WARNING ON ONLINE RECRUITMENT FRAUDS

Recently the Embassy of Malaysia Zagreb has received a number of enquiries from the public regarding alleged recruitment by Malaysian corporations. It has been noticed that all of these enquiries were online recruitment frauds. Therefore, we would like the public to pay attention to the following when applying or receiving online employment offers.

Recruitment fraud generally uses online services such as email, websites, or chat rooms including the Facebook to present fraudulent employment solicitations. Recruitment fraud schemes can take many forms which may change over time. Common recruitment fraud scams include the following:

• Establishment of a counterfeit website featuring company’s name, logo, and certain contact information. The perpetrators of this type of fraud hope internet users will log on to the website and submit personal information on the recruiting webpage or call a bogus contact number, which will result in the caller receiving excessive long-distance charges.
• Sending emails purporting to be from the oil and gas or similar companies. These emails will request the recipient to reply with an email containing personal information or to log onto a counterfeit website and submit personal information.
• Sending emails purporting to be from independent recruiters. These emails will request the payment of money (usually by PayPal and Western Union) in order to secure a position with the oil and gas company or to cover travel expenses or visa fees. The purported recruiters are fraudulent and will retain the money without providing any promised services.

In order to protect oneself against Recruitment Fraud, please keep the following in mind to be able to identify and avoid recruitment fraud:

• Malaysian corporations WILL NEVER ask for any money from applicants. Applicants are never asked to pay for travel, immigration, or other fees or expenses. Corporations will never request copies of passports, driver's licenses, credit cards, or other forms of personal identification by email.
• Corporation’s email addresses will always end with an official domain (e.g. @kln.gov.my) and NOT with a public domain such as @gmail.com, @hotmail.com, @yahoo.com etc. Any email purporting to be from any corporation which uses a different format is not genuine.
• Please always check the vacancy advertised on the official corporation’s web site which in Malaysia usually ends with ‘’.com.my’’.
• Any other format is not genuine. Corporations will never request a prospective applicant to visit a website other than their official website.