Job Scamming

Rec'd a very disturbing call from my niece last evening regarding an "interview" she had. There's a number of firms out there that are advertising on all job search engines, and even recruiting out of universities claiming to be seeking entry level marketing/sales management. They put her through a very lengthy interview and then informed her that she would be contacted at a later time if the managers were interested in a follow-up. Well, they did indeed contact her - and she was sooooo excited as you can imagine in this atmosphere. She was told to "clear her afternoon and early evening" and was invited back for a second interview where she would actually work with the "management" team and receive a hands-on opportunity to see exactly what her new responsibilities would entail. Well, she got herself all dolled up and arrived where there were others waiting and then each of them was assigned to a "manager" and driven into center city Philadelphia where they proceeded to make cold calls in as she described it "the most poverty stricken neighborhoods" she'd ever seen in her life. People would scream obscenities at them - she was scared to death. The problem was that she was so struck with shock that she just didn't know what to do. They stopped to get something to eat - "dutch" no expense account - and she was told that she was welcome to go home - just get on the bus - she had no idea where she was and still needed to get back to the office to retrieve her vehicle and some personal belongings. (I just figured out what she should have done - she should have taken out her cellphone and dialed 911.) As it turns out they were selling LIHEAP for Exelon (PECO) - I'm sure the firm was very successful at it's so-called marketing campaign, because they didn't pay half their labor force... I've filed a complaint with the FTC, and fraud alert notices to each of the job search engines - especially Careerbuilder to investigate, although after further research, it turns out that they burn up an area, and move on changing their name - their website remains the same, but their name changes. I'm sharing this in the hope that others aren't scammed. Thank goodness that she made it home safely - sometime around 9:00 PM, but extremely depressed and disappointed. (I know a senior executive at Exelon and I'm going to contact him this evening - anytime the fraudster receives a complaint he insists that he'd never be doing business with fortune 500 companies if he weren't legitimate.) We'll see.