The vast virtual world in which we conduct our online lives has endless resources to make our lives easier—and perhaps just as many that can leave us with unpleasant headaches.

Here’s a look at two of the latest online scams that could lead to identity theft and seriously harm you and your credit.

The Employment Credit-Check Scam

The blog Consumerist.com reported recently about a scam targeted at the unemployed. The scam, it seems, works like this:

• A job seeker is given a tentative offer of employment that’s dependent on whether or not she agrees to sign up for a “free” credit reporting service to “verify her U.S. citizenship.”
• When the job seeker signs up for the “free” service, she has to include sensitive personal information like her Social Security Number.
• The scammers, instead of actually employing the job seeker, use this information and/or charge her serious money for the “free” service.

Here’s how you can tell that this offer is a fake:

• While it’s legal (and fairly common) in most of the country for a potential employer to pull an applicant’s credit report, the applicant would never be asked to do this herself.
• You should never pay for a credit report—free ones are available to all Americans at www.annualcreditreport.com.
• Citizenship and credit history are not linked—you can have a credit report in the U.S. without being a citizen, and you can be a citizen without having a credit history.

The Consumerist article also includes the original scam email, which has several grammatical and usage errors—bad writing is another tipoff that an offer is a scam.

The Facebook “Dislike” Button

Watch out, social networkers: the latest Facebook scam (reported here) is apparently disguised as something Facebook users have been requesting for months—a “dislike” button to counter the “like” button. Here’s how this scam works:

• An offer for the “dislike” button appears, usually with some catchy, Facebook-sounding lingo.
• A Facebook user who clicks on the link is directed to a separate install page (which, according to sources, would not happen if the dislike button were legitimate).
• The scam requires the user to run an application, which installs malicious spyware onto his computer.
• After the spyware is installed, the user is directed to a “survey,” which is likely just an excuse to gather personal information so the scammers have a better shot at stealing the user’s identity and/or money.

These two scams target large swathes of the population, considering the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and the high unemployment rate. Protect yourself by keeping your personal information close, and spread the word to your friends and family.

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