There are a large number of South Africans looking for working and any advert is an opportunity for an unemployed person to submit their details and hope for the best.

A popular job site on Facebook received a post advertising employment, using a short link (abbreviated url) to send job seekers to a page where there was an advert for Checkers looking for staff.

The Facebook page states that “We promise to deliver our service with pride, honesty, integrity, and passion. It’s what makes us professionals in this industry. We have the experience, expertise, and enthusiasm.”  As well as “ We make recruitment agents find the best possible candidate for the job anywhere, anytime. Make it faster, simpler and safer for job seekers to find their ideal job and further their career.”

Da Vinci was asked to have a quick review, and this is what we discovered:

1. This particular post had 682 comments, mostly from desperate South Africans looking for work, 479 shares to other pages;
2. This website is allegedly followed an shared by thousands;
3. The site claimed “We make recruitment agents find the best possible candidate for the job anywhere, anytime. Make it faster, simpler and safer for job seekers to find their ideal job and further their career”
4. The short link goes to an url https://gadgetsza.com/. (PAGE NOW REMOVED)
5. The website has a crude message posted on their homepage; no legitimate website advertised jobs on behalf on any organisation would have many clients if this was their “vision”
6. The domain name is registered in Panama;

Furthermore, we have discovered that the link does contain malicious software.

What have we done?

1. Reported the page to Facebook;
2. Reported the domain to the hosting company and the domain registrar;
3. Reported the page and post to Checkers.

What do the scammers want?

1. Your details
2. Your contact lists
3. Information about you that could help them scam you, no matter how irrelevant it is to you.

What should you do?

If you are looking for employment we suggest that you take an extra 5 minutes and do a bit of research before clicking on the advert:

1. Big organisations will use reputable advertising agents to advertise their employment opportunities like LinkedIN and on their own Facebook Pages;
2. Look at the post that is being advertised,  look at the facebook page and where they are situated, look at their other adverts and have a look at the reviews;
3. Look at where the facebook page sends you, why would the site “gadgetsza” as in the above example be advertising on Checkers behalf?
4. Clicking on links allows the scammer to potential put malicious software on your device;
5. If you are looking for employment with Checkers the company has a careers page https://www.shopriteholdings.co.za/careers.html .  <–  Look at the url (the website address of the company) It states Shoprite Holdings who own the Checkers brand.
6. Lastly, Organisations do not give away free phones and gaming consoles to everyone who clicks a link or shares a post, these organisations usually construct competitions that are heavily publicized and there are a stated number of prizes;