Employment (or recruitment) fraud uses the guise of a genuine job opportunity to attract potential victims. Offenders use advertisements across print and social media to lure potential victims, asking them to directly pay “fees”, or send personal information (driver’s licence, bank account details, passports) to secure a job. Those who comply can expose themselves to a range of consequences, including fraud, identity crime, and money laundering. Despite the potential financial consequences for individuals and reputational consequences for the recruitment industry, before now little has been written about recruitment fraud as a specific category of fraud.
Current research, funded by contributions from QUT Centre for Justice (QUT C4J), Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology (BEST), and Centre for Decent Work & Industry, seeks to establish a baseline understanding of the prevalence of recruitment fraud in cyber and traditional labour markets in Australia.
Centre contact
Publications
- Grant-Smith, Deanna, Feldman, Alicia, Cross, Cassandra (2022) Key trends in employment scams in Australia: What are the gaps in knowledge about recruitment fraud?. QUT Centre for Justice Briefing Papers, 21.
- Cross, Cassandra, Grant-Smith, Deanna (2021) Recruitment Fraud : Increased opportunities for exploitation in times of uncertainty?. Social Alternatives, 40 (4), pp.9-14.
