A local woman says she was the victim of an employment scam. She says the scammer sent her a bogus check to deposit into her account.

An accounting major looking for a summer job, Tayla Broussard applied for a job online for a company she thought was in Carencro.

She then received texts from a person claiming to be with that company.

“It’s not my first rodeo with jobs, so I put my all into it. Next thing you know he was like ‘Ok, hey, you’ve been hired. My HR is going to email you employment papers,'” Broussard said,

Broussard received the employment papers, but she knew something was off.

“The employment papers were out of whack,” explained Broussard. “The font and styles and everything were terrible.”

Then, it all became even scarier.

“Next thing you know, he texted me saying ‘Hey, I just sent out a payment for you so you can retrieve all your software’ because I’ll be working from home. I said ‘Payment, what, what are you talking about.'”

Broussard received a check for over $1700.

“I opened it up. I said ‘Oh, it’s a check.’ I said ‘Ok.’ I looked at the check amount. My name was on there completely. There was an actual bank.”

Chris Babin, with the Better Business Bureau of Acadiana, said, “Most companies are not going to pay you for work that you haven’t performed yet so if you receive some kind of check or some type of compensation, and they’re asking for the difference or for you to deposit that in your account and send them the money. That’s normally a tip off that this is a scam.”

Confused, but knew it was a fraudulent check, Broussard contacted the person she’d been communicating with regarding the job.

“So I said I received a check,” Broussard said. “‘Are you aware that this amount is pretty outrageous?’ He was like, ‘Well, it’s only a little bit amount, but it also should cover this weeks pay.’ I’m like, ‘How do you pay an employee if they haven’t worked?'”

The Better Business Bureau says employment scams are not something new.

Scammers find it easy to use businesses’ information to impersonate someone in a hiring position and finding applicants for jobs that are in reality, just made up.

Some tips to protect yourself from employment scams from the Better Business Bureau:

• Make sure you watch out for work from home, or any job with a generic title.
• Be cautious of on the spot job offers… job offers are usually not made without an interview.
• Government agencies post all jobs publicly and freely.
• Get all details and contracts in writing.

If you have a scam you’d like me to investigate, feel free to send me an email at smasters@klfy.com.

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