WARNING job hunters: scam/spam danger

[Lerkfish]

I have no definitive proof, but wanted to warn people of something that has occurred and my surmise as to the cause.

as some might know, I've been unemployed for a while and trying to apply for jobs all across the country.

recently, I have been getting voluminous spam emails that are literally clogging my inbox.

I believe there are two possible causes: one: I tried to apply for a working at home gig.... but I didn't give any personal info, I just checked out the job.

more likely IMHO:

there is a recruiter called CyberCoders. I have applied to jobs they've offered over the past year, and they send alerts on jobs to me.
They post a lot of openings on careerbuilder and monster.com. I've applied to perhaps 60 positions, with no feedback once applied, although they will often email me to apply for other positions. I have never heard back from any of these positions (which is not that unusual in this job market)

About the same time I started getting spammed, the "alerts" they started sending me started including positions that matched nearly identically the spam emails I was getting. Whereas their list of openings used to include normal sounding jobs, now they include titlles like "work at home" which, when you open up the link, EXACTLY resemble some of the spam I'm getting.

Now, I'm not just getting work at home spam, it covers the gamut from penis enlargers, lonely housewives, GI bill education, loans, burial plots, insurance, you name it.

what's also annoying is these spam DEFEAT my spam filter, everyday. I keep tagging them as spam, and the same spam keeps defeating the filter, so that I have to manually tag them as spam every day. I am probably receiving close to 400 spam emails a day now.

I just wanted to warn people that my SUSPICION is that this company is harvesting information instead of really offering positions.
I did a search on Cybercoders and spam, and turned up a LOT of hits on google, although they are mainly referring to positions email spams.... but a lot are implying the positions they advertise do not exist.

I can absolutely verify that over the last year, I know from the wording, that the same positions are constantly listed, I apply, I get sent an email saying the position is closed, and then the same position is listed again, or still.

I could be wrong, but my spidey senses are tingling on this company. Caveat Emptor.

[hobbit709]

1. Monster.com is notorious for this.

The spammers harvest the email addresses from resumes.

[Lerkfish]

2. I don't doubt it, I'm just referring to a recent uptick

[Lerkfish]

3. kick