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[wombat]

Hmm. Some jobs do require a background check that includes a credit check, but I've never been asked to do the background check on myself. But it's been a while.

[Mr Trout]

Did you find these people on Craigslist? When I was looking for an apartment a couple years ago a some of the listings I replied to asked me to do an online credit report right off the bat. I'm assuming it's a personal info harvesting thing for identity theft. Most definitely a scam.

[greenkoolayd]

[Arachno-capitalist]

Did you find these people on Craigslist? When I was looking for an apartment a couple years ago a some of the listings I replied to asked me to do an online credit report right off the bat. I'm assuming it's a personal info harvesting thing for identity theft. Most definitely a scam.

yeah i too encountered that scam in DC. The credit report/identity theft thing is all over craigslist.

[theinevitable]

yes, this is a scam. damnit.

[side_show]

...shop for a birthday gift for a 16 year old girl.  This is surprizingly hard.  She's has everything.  I'm thinking maybe a spa day?

[wombat]

Gift certificate. Or money.

[jay-ell]

But 22$ an hour is pretty awesome.

Yes, it is. I think I need to raise my rates.

[linear]

It's conceivable that as part of the application process, an employer / landlord would ask you to run a credit report and/or criminal background check on yourself using a reputable service, and that this service would have a feature whereby you could have the report e-mailed to whomever you want, e.g. the employer / landlord.

The Red Cross does something similar to this.  To qualify for many if not all of their volunteer positions, you have to create an account on a 3rd party background check web site (I forget the name of the site) and provide such info as is needed for them to do a background check on you (Social Security number, etc.)  I believe what happens next is if the Red Cross decides to accept you as a volunteer, the Red Cross then orders a background check on you, the results of which are provided to both yourself and the Red Cross.  I believe the Red Cross doesn't actually have access to the sensitive personal information you provided that is needed to run the background check - and they wouldn't want it either, as there is liability associated with handling such information, especially in California.  This is why they use a 3rd party service.

But there's a big difference between a reputable and established organization such as the Red Cross and some random anonymous party you meet on Craig's List...

A further example is that of various certifications... E.g. the CompTIA certifications... If I remember correctly, if you hold a CompTIA certification, you can have your certification e-mailed to whomever you choose, and the recipient receives a link which allows them to check via the CompTIA website that you actually hold the certification you claim to hold.

My analysis of nationalcreditreport.com is that it is more or less a bona fide company providing a more or less bona fide service, however it wouldn't surprise me if you would receive endless SPAM after giving them your personal information, and it wouldn't surprise me if as a part of the TOS you are giving them permission to endlessly resell and otherwise indefinitely warehouse and mine your personal information.

In the case of the link you received via Craig's List:

www.nationalcreditreport.com/index.cfm/offer_may6v12

note the "offer_may6v12" at the end of it.

This is probably an affiliate code whereby some 3rd party gets credit for every instance of a signup that arrives at the web site using this code.

The company's affiliate program may be open to anyone and everyone, or it may only be contracted out to specific engineers in the hacking/social engineering industry, or it may well be in-house, in which case it wouldn't be considered an affiliate program so much as an advertising/spamming program, but in so far as the end result is still the same (lots of unfortunate spam) this is just a question of semantics.

Either way, a company that is helped more than it is hurt by it's affiliate links spamming Craig's List is probably best avoided...

As far as credit checks go, you can get better service/price on credit checks by going directly to the big 3 - transunion, experian, equifax, and there is a 4th one whose name escapes me at the moment.. one which is kind of a metacombination of the others...

so I've been applying to half a dozen jobs a day (filing, temp work, etc) and got an email about an interview. However, they're telling me I have to do a credit report thing online as part of the "screening process." Is this normal? I am super not-into giving my credit card number to the internet when I don't know what is going on.

I do not trust a website that looks like this with my credit card number.

is this normal?

I also can't find their office on google maps. hmmm.

[theinevitable]

ok, seriously, is every person who emails me about a job going to be trying to scam me? This is now two days in a row. God damnit.

they all use the same website-template, with a really vague description of the company that never mentions where they are located or how to get in touch with them.

but this time they're only asking for my name and email? I don't get it.

a search for the name of their "company" returns zero hits. Fuck this noise.


shit, what does my dad want for father's day?

[linear]

my sister posted an ad for her lost cat on CL and she said people would e-mail her and engage her in conversation, e.g. "have you tried looking at the pound, etc." would pretend they were in a similar situation also with a lost pet, and then after a couple of e-mails the people would e-mail her a link to and recommend to her they try some site that charges money to find your pet... obviously, these sites are scams run by people probably not even in the US.

craig's list is problematic because it barely filters it's content at all.  any security that you implement always has pros and cons, and cost and benefit.  As a result, all the dishonest people of the world go to CL, because they are anonymous.  Some guy selling you a car or computer or whatever on CL is essentially anonymous.  You can meet him in person, but you know nothing about his reputation, unlike if you buy on ebay... ebay filtering via reputation leaves a lot to be desired but it's still way better than CL. 

I wouldn't expect much from CL in a job search...  There are some employers who use CL, maybe some employers of hippie 'free internet' mindset, and some employers who have no clue who use it, some recruiters I'm sure, so I mean, there are some jobs on there, but, the signal to noise ratio is gonna be terrible.

Maybe CL was used more by employers back when the economy was booming and they were desperate for employees.  But even for employers, CL has a signal to noise problem...  any idiot can reply to a job posting on CL, any idiot can post a resume..

If the employer is desperate, the employer will shoulder the burden of filtering through gobs of data to sort the signal from the noise, but now that employers are not so desperate, now the burden is more on the prospective employee to demonstrate up front to the employer that he/she is viable, such as by networking and getting introduced to the employer by the employer's nephew, such as by subscribing to job listing services that are expensive and/or time consuming to register for (expense and time both being effective filters for removing some noise) or such as, in the case of more specialized labor, getting recruiters to sell you. 

Many employers now are not even considering ANY applicants who are unemployed, because, statistically speaking, less of these applicants are viable than are applicants who are employed.  Employers are in some cases desperate to improve the signal to noise ratio.  Is that any way for a society to operate - well, no, but, welcome to America, *insert snarky comment about BP here* etc etc.

but yeah.. the internet... it's like the world's marketplace... and the world is full of desperately poor people who are trying to make a buck just to survive, so, there you go... it's not an ideal marketplace...   I hope this perspective can help you better navigate it all.  Good luck with your job search.  If you get really desperate you are welcome to borrow my van so you can find and kill one of these CL spammers and then if you get caught you won't have to worry about food shelter or health care for a while.

[theinevitable]

just found out that a couple of good friends are staying in STL next year, and are looking for another roommate. ADDED INCENTIVE.

[littlefallsmets]

ok, seriously, is every person who emails me about a job going to be trying to scam me?

Yes.

Welcome to the Secret Depression! It's fun as hell, huh?

[AugustWest]

craig's list is problematic because it barely filters it's content at all. 

In and of itself I don't see this as a problem, so long as you are aware of it.  If you count on Craiglist to protect you, you're going to be sadly disappointed.  But if you approach CL with a healthy skepticism you'll be fine.  I bought a great car and got two good jobs off of Craigslist.

[linear]

oh yeah, this is true.  I got two hyundai elantras off of CL.  One was a great deal from a great person, the other was a lemon from a jerk who reset the computer codes before I test drove it so the check engine light was off.  I was totally off my game the day I inspected the latter.  live and learn.  It's just inefficient, is all, when you have to do all this filtering yourself.  There are not a lot of alternatives to CL either...  in a lot of categories, such as classifieds, few if any other options combine the ease of access with appropriate filtering.