Triage Healthcare Staffing provided this article.
Recently, we’ve heard reports of scammers pretending to be travel nurse recruiters and targeting allied and nursing travelers. To help keep you safe, we’re sharing a few red flags that you can watch out for.
Red Flag: A Free Email Address
There’s a fast and simple way to determine if you’re talking with a legitimate recruiter—their email address. Any emails should come from the company’s domain, so avoid any recruiter messages that come from Gmail. Yahoo, AOL, Outlook, or Hotmail. Scammers can be smart, so some may even spin a story about how they’ve lost access to their work email address and are using their personal address to contact you.
Also, watch out for people claiming to be your agency’s compliance, onboarding, benefits, and payroll staff. These support teams will have the same email domain as your recruiter, so be sure to double-check to ensure they’re really from your agency.
Red Flag: Job Postings with Errors
Even legitimate agencies can have a mistake or two in their job postings, but if you see a job post that’s full of errors, take a closer look. Scammers can use numbers to replace letters, like j0b or $alary, and they’re doing that to avoid spam filters, especially on sites like Facebook.
Red Flag: Asking for Cash to Find You a Job
Let’s be clear. A recruiter’s job is to find you a job. They will never ask you for money to do so.
We’ve seen reports of fake recruiters asking candidates to pay a “subscription” fee to find the highest-paying jobs. Most companies offer job alert emails that you can sign up to receive free of charge. No subscription is required.
Red Flag: Getting Hired on the Spot
We know that travelers prefer texting instead of talking on the phone. However, it’s incredibly rare to get hired if you’ve never talked on the phone with your recruiter or the facility. Communicating by text isn’t a red flag by itself, but if your recruiter refuses other methods of communication, make sure to do your diligence to ensure you’re actually talking to an actual recruiter.
Red Flag: Asking for Gift Cards
A lot of people have seen these scams, but if you haven’t, watch out for a text message claiming to be from an agency employee. It will usually say something like this, “Hey, it’s AGENCY CEO. I’m in a meeting, but can you get me a $500 gift card for a giveaway? I’ll reimburse you.”
Without a doubt, a reputable agency employee will never, ever ask you to send them money via a gift card. They’re counting on the fact that the request from the CEO seems urgent, so you won’t question it.
Red Flag: Asking for Banking Information in an Email or Text
Being a healthcare traveler is a job, so naturally, your agency needs your banking information. However, reputable agencies have a payroll portal where you will enter your information yourself. Your recruiter should never need your banking information sent directly to them.
Instead, you’ll enter your information into your payroll portal so your agency can deposit your paycheck directly into your account on payday.
How to Keep Yourself Safe
Verify Agency Employees
If you feel like something is off with a recruiter, the solution is simple. Google the agency’s phone number, call it, and ask to talk to the recruiter. It’s possible that the recruiter is out of the office, but you should at least be able to verify if the person exists.
Beware of AI-Generated Recordings
AI-created deepfakes can seem real and difficult to identify. Scammers have devised schemes where they spoof phone numbers and use deepfake audio to imitate the voices of family members, aiming to trick the target into sending money. Similar tactics have also been used in job-related scams. To protect yourself from these types of fraud, always verify unusual requests by using a multi-factor authentication process.
Protecting yourself from scammers takes some diligence, but it’s not impossible. By watching out for these red flags, you’ll be armed against scammers who are looking to take advantage of you.
Looking for an agency that’s committed to treating you with honesty and candor? Triage Staffing listens to what you want and then shoots you straight so you can make the decision that’s right for you. To connect with a Triage recruiter, apply for a travel nurse job on the Triage website.
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