NextAdvisor.com featured in Fortune Magazine

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May 21st, 2009 - Posted by Joe

Fortune Magazine's Anne Fisher featured our Facebook Identity Theft Protection Guide as part of her newest "Ask Annie" column that highlighted the recent trend of identity thieves victimizing job seekers.

Job seekers are typically willing to provide detailed personal information to a potential employer as part of the interview process since, as Fisher points out in her column, this person could very well offer them a job. However, this makes the job seekers a potentially ripe target for scammers who pose as hiring managers in an attempt to perpetrate identity theft.

So how can you protect yourself? Fisher provides a series of tips, including the following advice on how to deal with a request on a phone interview for very personal information such as social security number or date of birth:

Instead of blurting out the data, politely ask for the person's phone number or e-mail address and say you'll get back to him or her shortly. Then call the company's HR department, ask whether the person works there, and inquire if they customarily request these vital stats when scheduling an interview. Most likely, the answers to both questions will be "no."

This alarming trend in job seeker identity theft also highlights the depths that identity thieves will go to in order to find victims. As always, we recommend that readers consider and identity theft protection service. You can read our identity theft protection service reviews and comparisons to learn more.