Job scam: Health department cautions public to ignore fake opportunity

Job seekers, beware… the department of health is warning of a fraudulent job scam doing the rounds this week.

The scam, according to the department, involves an appointment or employment letter bearing the department’s logo.

Here’s what you need to know.

Job scam alert

This crafty scam involves legitimate-looking employment letters but there’s a catch: job hopefuls are asked to pay a refundable upfront fee of R250.

The scammers claim this fee will cover background checks to confirm that the applicants have clean criminal records and are genuine candidates.

Admin clerk appointment letter

The appointment letter states the job seeker’s application was successful to “be fully employed as part of the Health Department of Health as an Admin Clerk”.

The letter also lists the job description and duties, along with induction instruction, and stipulates the salary as R14 800 CTC.

Then comes the red flag: “Before the training date, you are required to pay a fully refundable fee of R250 by 13th July for background checks to ensure you do not have any criminal records, and that you are a legit candidate.”

The second red flag is the instruction to make the payment through a PEP store via its money transfer services.

Job scam website

The letter goes on to stipulate the code to use for the money transfer, and instructs the applicant to send proof of payment to an AOL email address.

It also mentions the department’s ‘job portal’, but the URL – doh-vacancies.org – does not belong to the health department.

The department’s job alerts will be posted on the official website, under the vacancies page – health.gov.za/vacancies.

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Health department alert

The health department said it had been inundated with calls and queries, and urges job seekers to give this ‘opportunity’ a wide berth.

“We would urge anyone who receives these suspicious employment offers which require them to pay money for whatever reason to secure a job opportunity, to ignore them.”

The department said government will never charge people a job application or handling fee.

The health department said in no uncertain terms: “These letters were not issued by the department and the public should not pay any cent to secure job opportunities in the public sector”.

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