Protecting yourself from recruitment scams

There has recently been a significant rise in job scams, often featuring fraudsters impersonating recruitment companies or consultants. 

At PageGroup, we are making every possible effort to spread awareness of the tactics employed by fraudsters, and to protect individuals and organisations from scams using our company name. 

If you receive any unsolicited job offers or suspect any fraudulent activity related to PageGroup, we encourage you to take the following steps:

  1. Do not interact with or open any attachments or links within the suspicious email or message.
  2. Report the incident by forwarding the email, along with any relevant information, to qualitycare@page.com.
  3. Delete the email from your inbox and empty your trash or recycle bin.

Warning signs when being contacted

Below is a list of warning signs that could indicate you have been contacted by a scammer posing as a recruitment consultant:

  • A purported PageGroup consultant requesting you to: 
    • Provide personal financial details.
    • Pay a fee in order to be put forward as a candidate for a role.
    • Pay money on behalf of another individual.
  • Online contact on from a purported recruitment consultant with:
    • A lack of activity, information, or contact details on their profile.
    • A suspicious profile picture.
  • Poor spelling and/or grammar
  • Communications of any sort guaranteeing employment or income.

PageGroup will never request direct payment from a candidate. All email communications from us be sent from official PageGroup/Michael Page/Page Executive/Page Outsourcing email domains. These are:

  • @michaelpage.com.hk
  • @pageoutsourcing.com
  • @pageexecutive.com
  • @page.com

Warning sites for webpages

There has also been a rise in cases of fraudsters cloning the sites of legitimate recruitment consultancies in an attempt to steal money and/or the personal details of job seekers and hiring managers. 

To check the legitimacy of a site, we could encourage you to verify the SSL certificate. In most browsers, this can be done by clicking the padlock on the far left of the URL. If it doesn’t have one, this could be a sign of a scam website.

Instant messaging scams

Scammers are also using publicly available information to impersonate our consultants and forge job offers via instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat, or Telegram.

If you receive a suspicious message from the platform, we recommend that you block and report these contacts using the reporting options available on the platform.

More information

For more information on recruitment scams, how to spot them, and who to contact, check out the dedicated page by the Antideception Coordination Centre here.