How to spot a fake Maid Job advert

Here at Maid Match, we want to make sure that the users of our online maid database stay safe and to do so we want to help housemaids to identify and avoid fake job adverts.

With an increase in online recruitment and research showing a rise in the number of job scams, it is increasingly important to know how to spot a fake job advert.

Importantly remember if the housemaid or nanny position sounds too good to be true and the employer is asking for any money up front there is a good chance that you are looking at a scam advert.

What does a fake maid job advert look like?

A fake advert is a job advert for a housemaid or nanny vacancy for a position that does not exist. These maid positions can be for very well remunerated, or provide lots of benefits, great hours and or be for exciting opportunities to work abroad in desirable countries like the United Kingdom, the United States or Canada.

Why do scammers post fake maid job adverts?

The main reason for advertising fake job vacancies is to scam money out of the application, usually in the form of an Advanced fee and is called Advanced Fee Fraud. This is a very commonly reported type of job fraud – candidates are tricked into paying upfront or advance fees in order to apply to the housemaid position. These can be disguised as maid Visa charges, police checks, training or admin fees. The money may be requested all in one go or more often in a couple of sperate transactions. Having already given over some money this means that the job seeker feels committed to the vacancy and is more likely to send over additional money.

Tips on how to identify a fake maid job advert

The first thing to do is to pay close attention to the email address they are contacting you from, scammers are more likely to use generic email addresses like AOL or Hotmail that are easy to set up. Real company email addresses are much less likely to be fake.

Be very cautious of housemaid positions in Western or European countries. It is exceedingly difficult to get visas for European or Western countries such as the UK or the US. While they may have a limited number of visa’s for positions such as nurses and doctors, priority for unskilled positions will always be given to their local population and are extremely unlikely to offer visas to unskilled workers from abroad.

Do not trust individuals or families who are seeking candidates for multiple positions, it would be very strange for a family to be looking for a driver, gardener, nanny, housemaid, tutor and carer all at the same time. This is a trick used by scammers to catch as many possible different job seekers as possible.

Do not trust people who only make contact by WhatsApp, email or Facebook. As soon as you can you should speak to the employer either by phone or skype, this it will make it a lot harder for someone to pretend they are who they are not.

When communicating with your potential future employer, pay attention to their English, if someone claims to be American or British and their written and spoken English should be perfect. If it is not as good as it should be then they may be a scammer.

When considering your next housemaid position, it is important to remember not to ignore any feelings that you have that something is not right, if a housemaid position looks too good to be true it probably is!

At Maid Match we would never ever recommend giving money to anyone offering you a position. There is no reason why you should be required to pay any fees or charges to apply for a housemaid position.