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![Don D](http://blr-hrforums.elasticbeanstalk.com/plugins/DefaultAvatars/design/GreenAvatar.jpg)
Not really a question; just a heads-up. For those of you who place multiple recruitment ads in various media, there's a gimmick you may or may not have encountered. I've thrown away the last several bills so I can't cite the company for you; but, we periodically will receive what appear to be legitimate invoices/bills for employment ads that have run, AND THEY ARE BOGUS. Unless you have a very tight program in place to ensure you placed an ad prior to accounting paying the bill, this could happen to you. The 'bill' looks legitimate, has the business name of your company, the run-date and the precise job title and text of your ad. They actually copied your ad out of a paper, website or magazine where it DID run. The 'bill' is set up just as any real bill, with a column for the amount and payment terms with a discount for prompt payment. So, what's wrong with this picture?...in small print you are advised that this is not really a bill, but if you go ahead and pay it, your ad will appear somewhere. I suppose it's just legal enough not to be illegal.
Comments
Yeah, Don makes a good point. I also dislike the companies that try to pass them off as government agencies with names like "National So and So" and "The American Such and Such". They want you to purchase their postings and seem to always somehow know that your "current postings may not be compliant".
I also dislike the companies that send you invoices for newsletters asking you to renew when you never signed up in the first place.
Ok, I feel better. Thanks Don.
Cinderella
- we have won an award for our continuing efforts on behalf of said group and will be honored in a forthcoming issue featuring our ad, and/or
- they want make sure our address is the same as last year for "our" yearly posting in their annual/special EEO edition.
I had a CEO who fell for one of these and came to proudly let me know he had taken care of it for me -- and was looking foward to the good PR that would result. He, of course, paid the (faxed) bill but never saw the promised "special edition." And he got at least a call a week for the next year with variants on this theme, trying to test how gullible he really was.
Warm regards,
Steve
Steve McElfresh, PhD
Principal
HR Futures
408.605.1870