LinkedIn says it intercepts the 'majority' of scams on its site — but job hunters say it's not enough

LinkedIn rolled out verification tools last year to curb fraudulent posts on the platform. Job hunters say scammers have just gotten smarter.

• LinkedIn rolled out verification tools last year to curb spam and fake job ads on the platform.
• Despite the new process, job hunters say fake ads from scammers are still rampant on the site.
• The scams often target recent graduates and young professionals, per the Federal Trade Commission. 

"I'm thrilled to extend to you an offer for the Personal Assistant role following a meticulous review of your qualifications. Your impressive skills and experience are precisely what I am seeking, and I am genuinely excited about the prospect of having you join our team."

The communications sound official enough, often coming from email domains nearly indistinguishable from actual companies job hunters believe they've applied to on LinkedIn.

They can be effusive and complementary, boosting the confidence of applicants searching for a new gig in a job market plagued by massive layoffs.

But all too often, it turns out, it's a scam: While it remains unclear exactly how many people fall victim to fake job scams on LinkedIn each year, the platform says it removed more than 63 million fake accounts from registering on the site between July and December 2023. Yet they're still getting through often enough that the Federal Trade Commission has recently warned the public about the prevalence of fake job scams.

The 'fake check' scam

Chris Conwell had initially applied to a job ad on LinkedIn in early March. The 25-year-old operations manager had been furloughed in October and was starting to get antsy about finding new prospects. He told Business Insider he was so eager to get to work that he very nearly fell for a fake check scam after being offered a personal assistant role — but it was to a fraudster posing as a potential employer.

Fake check scams generally involve a supposed employer mailing a fraudulent check to the would-be employee they're attempting to scam. The scammer encourages the victim to deposit the fake check to purchase work-related items like hardware or software — but the check bounces, leaving the victim with a negative balance and potentially having their account flagged for fraud.

"I have arranged for a check to be sent to you via my client, which you should expect to receive today or tomorrow via USPS," read an email Conwell received from a fake recruiter.

The email from one "Michael Hecht" continued, laying out instructions for Conwell to gather flight options and price information for an upcoming business trip. But, Conwell told Business Insider, something felt wrong.

"When he mentioned that, suddenly, he'd be sending a check, and it would come in the mail, and then he would want me to deposit it to use for, you know, quote-unquote, administrative duties, that really started setting off those spidey senses like, something doesn't seem quite right here," Conwell told BI. "So I kind of started calling out a lot of the things that seemed sketchy, but he would just dodge the questions and just kind of start to essentially expedite his process."

Conwell received a check the same day he received the email from Hecht telling him to be on the lookout for it. And when Conwell took the check to his bank, letting them know he was concerned it was fake, they immediately confirmed his fears.

"They let me know it obviously was fraudulent, the funds wouldn't pass through," Conwell said.

The targets: recent graduates and young professionals

The Federal Trade Commission also recently released a warning about thriving job scams online, saying recent college graduates with limited work experience are at particular risk for being targeted.

Representatives for LinkedIn directed Business Insider to recent statements made by the company about their commitment to bolstering verification procedures on the website, but the company declined to comment specifically on the instances described in this article.

"In the last 12 months, we've expanded verification access thanks to our collaborations with CLEAR, Persona, and Microsoft Entra," Oscar Rodriguez, vice president of product management at LinkedIn, wrote in a post last month. "Globally, 800M members now have the option to verify at least one detail of their professional identity. Today, 50% of job views on LinkedIn are of jobs with verifications on them."

A representative for the company also pointed to internal statistics that indicate LinkedIn intercepts the majority of detected fake accounts and scams before fake recruiters can post. The numbers presented in LinkedIn's report could not be independently verified by BI.

Optional verification tools aren't enough

LinkedIn has rolled out new verification tools over the last year to curb fake ads and spam on the site. One such tool is a third-party service that verifies user identities by having them snap a selfie with their ID, granting users a "verified" badge on their profile.

However, Jordan Bittel, an IT support specialist targeted by a fake recruiter on LinkedIn, told BI that despite the platform's optional verification process, scammers seem to be getting smarter. They emulate the websites of legitimate companies, send recruiting documents through services like DocuSign, and write emails that sound like legitimate invitations to interview.

"I would expect there to be a bit more due diligence on LinkedIn's part," Bittel said. "I know that a lot of places you have to pay to play, so if you want your post to be up there, you've got to pay, whether that's buying the premium account or whatever it is — and I would expect that LinkedIn would do a bit more vetting."

Posting an initial job ad on LinkedIn is free, but it costs to promote the listing to a wider audience.

At the time of publication, the platform's verification tools remain optional for both recruiters and job seekers like Conwell.

"Obviously, I would love for every job board to be as meticulous as possible in trying to vet these things because I mean, realistically, if someone does get really adversely affected by something like this, it kind of begs the question of, can LinkedIn be liable for any kind of harm or damages that happen afterwards?" Conwell said. "Because these people are using their site as a tool to snag these desperate individuals and get them wrapped up in these scams and other possibly really illegal things."