• MEDIA RELEASE

    Statement by:

    Rick Crouch, (CCDI, CCFE, Q|CII)
    Rick Crouch & Associates
    Private Investigators & Digital Forensics

    31 August 2020

    Release: Immediate

    WARNING TO JOB SEEKERS

    Potential job seekers are being scammed out of what little money they have.

    Durban based private investigator Rick Crouch of Rick Crouch & Associates says that he receives approximately 20 calls a week from people requesting a background check for a job they have been offered. This job offer is a scam.

    The way the scam works is that the victim receives an email from Executive Career Placements informing them that their job application was successful and saying "before we finalize the entire process, the employers require a full and current background check and screening on your profile as this is now compulsory prior to the final job offer."  They then advise the victim to contact Absolute Checks South Africa for the background check. The people sending the email and Absolute Checks South Africa are the same people. The victim would pay the R350 for the background check for a non existent job and that is the last they would hear from them.

    Absolute Checks South Africa does have a very basic website to satisfy those that dig a little deeper, however when we dug a little deeper we found that the domain absolutechecks.co.za was only registered with the domain authority on 2020/07/16 09:26:02

    Executive Career Placements also has a very basic website, however, the domain executivenationalcareerplacements.co.za was only registered with the domain authority on 2020/08/25 07:40:32

    Both Absolute Checks South Africa and the Executive Career Placements websites were created using Wix.com free website creator.

    Absolute Checks South Africa is also not registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority (PSiRA) as they would be required to do by law if they were a legitimate company doing background checks.

    Everyone should be aware that if any company asks you to conduct your own background check for a job you should dig a little deeper because companies do not require you to conduct your own background check, it is done by the company hiring you or the placement agency.

     

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    Media Contact:

    Rick Crouch, (CCDI, CCFE, Q|CII)
    Rick Crouch & Associates
    Private Investigators & Digital Forensics
    Mobile: 076.449.5263 | Web: www.rickcrouch.co.za