August 26, 2021
Ergon Energy has warned that scammers are trying to rip off jobseekers with fake offers of jobs at the corporation.
Ergon general manager services Belinda Watton said the the online predators were making fake job offers for non-existent roles within Ergon while demanding money for the service.
“These scammers are randomly contacting people offering fictional employment opportunities within Ergon and asking for personal identification and demanding payments for a bogus application process,” Ms Watton said.
“The scammers are operating around the globe and we’ve had people from as far away as the USA contact us – one person claimed to have handed over $8000.
“We’ve also heard of Queenslanders being contacted by dodgy operators claiming to represent us or our parent company, Energy Queensland, with most approaches coming through online job boards, direct emails, or from fake identities claiming to be affiliated with sites like LinkedIn.
“The bottom line is Ergon doesn’t randomly reach out offering employment to people who haven’t applied for a role, and we never, ever ask for payment to process an application.
“When we’re recruiting our roles are only listed at www.energyq.com.au/careers”
Ms Watton said whatever the approach, the grooming spiel was always similar, ie. they’ve heard about the individual, identified them as a great candidate and try to lure them with a good-paying (non-existent) job, usually work-from-home.
Their next step is to seek a lot of personal information and often then payment to “progress” their application, security checks, IT licences etc.
“It’s disgraceful and it’s heartbreaking. Please be on guard: if you want to check the legitimacy of a contact claiming to be from us, please call us or message us through social media,” Ms Watton said.
Anyone who thinks they’re being scammed should report it to www.scamwatch.gov.au
