Better Business Bureau warns of scams targeting unemployed

Three scams target Jacksonville job seekers

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Better Business Bureau is warning consumers of a scam that is targeting the unemployed in Jacksonville.

The BBB told Channel 4 about three different job related scams that are targeting people in Jacksonville.

"All this stuff's on the Internet, but you can use Google to found out a lot of stuff," the Better Business Bureau's Tom Stephens explained.

Stephens said two of the scams the BBB is warning about are pyramid schemes, where people pay money and the ad leads people to believe that by performing some simple tasks, people can make up to $30,000 in a year.

The third scam is called earndrive.com. In this scam, the website asks for a $40 membership fee and promises to send a free car. The claim is that the car is wrapped with a design that is used to advertise.

The people who signed up, the BBB said, never got their cars.

"First off if a company asks for you to pay for training materials, that's a complete scam, especially if they ask you to bring cash," said Stephens.

Stephens gave these tips to folks who are looking for jobs on the Internet but are afraid of getting scammed.

Stephens said people need to look for grammatical errors in ads for jobs; Chances are if there are spelling mistakes, the job isn't real.

Secondly, Stephens said people need to search a company; A simple Google search should show whether a company is real, fake or tied to a scam.

Finally, check for a website; If the company doesn't have one, it's probably not legit.

Click here to learn more about these scams on the Better Business Bureau's website.