CARMEL, Ind. — A plant specialist. That is the job Stephanie Carlson, owner of Naturspire, originally wanted to fill.
"We got probably 100 different applicants," Carlson said, "Really a lot of talented people."
After finding the right person, Carlson closed her post on ZipRecruiter.
Weeks later, calls and text messages began rolling in about a data entry job.
"I was like, 'Well, I don't know what you're talking about. We don't have office data entry. We are plant care specialists,'" Carlson explained.
When she tried to log into her ZipRecruiter account, Carlson learned she was locked out.
"They [scammers] got into the account, changed my email so that they would get the responses from the people," Carlson said.
The person used her name, a lookalike email address and her company logo to offer a generous $35/hour.
Sarah, one of the applicants, thought it sounded like a great opportunity.
"This is the employment offer letter that got emailed," Sarah said as she showed 13News the document. We are not using Sarah's last name since she is a victim of fraud.
From Sarah's view, she did her homework.
"Google searched it [the company], looked up Naturspire. Saw the person's name was Stephanie that owned it," Sarah explained.
So, she handed over all of her personal information, including Social Security number.
"I guess I should have called them and said, 'Hey, do you have a ZipRecruiter?' Or 'I applied for this job through ZipRecruiter,'" Sarah said.
Confirming a job post independently is a must according to Santiago Torres-Arias, an assistant professor of computer engineering at Purdue University.
That means finding the company online and calling them with a phone number you personally locate. You can also check the company's website to see if you can apply there directly.
"You would think twice before you hand out your credit card information," he said. "Now I want people to think about their personal information in the same way."
Torres-Arias said a lot of times scammers are gathering data to sell it.
"Think of this as the cybercriminal equivalent of somebody who breaks into a car by smashing the window, grabbing whatever and running away," Torres-Arias said.
Just last year, the Federal Trade Commission said job scams cost people $286 million, with the median loss being $2,008. That is more than double what it was two years before that.
Carlson said it took days to regain access to her account, leaving the door temporarily open for people to hand over their personal info.
"ZipRecruiter is a huge company," Carlson said, "I think there really needs to be a better, more efficient way to protect the people that use these platforms."
That way, people looking for a paycheck do not turn into a target.
ZipRecruiter did not respond to our request for comment.