They were looking for work —
but found a scam instead.
Innovative scammers are posting jobs that are nearly indistinguishable from legitimate listings, including on trusted websites like LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter.
In a national feature published on NBCNews.com and picked up by YahooNews.com, reporter Shannon Pettypiece documented the sweeping rise of fake job scams targeting unemployed Americans on platforms like LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter — and the one person who had been fighting them on the front lines for nearly two years.
The article traced how scammers had evolved far beyond crude, obvious schemes — now posting jobs nearly indistinguishable from legitimate listings, stealing corporate identities, spoofing recruiter email addresses, and weaponizing trusted platforms against desperate job seekers.
"Fake job posts and profiles on LinkedIn have become so prevalent that Jay Jones said he spends well over 40 hours a week voluntarily fielding hundreds of messages from users about possible scams and flagging them to LinkedIn, including fake or hacked recruiter profiles, phony job postings and job coaching or résumé writing scams. He said he has reported about 32,000 fake jobs and 7,000 fake profiles in less than two years."
— Shannon Pettypiece, NBC News · October 20, 2025The NBC News feature positioned The Profiler as the definitive authority on fake employment fraud at the platform level — the only individual documented to be operating at this scale, without institutional funding, without a staff, and without stopping.
The coverage was subsequently republished by YahooNews.com, extending the story's reach to millions of additional readers and cementing The Profiler's national profile as the investigator behind the numbers.
They were looking for work — but found a scam instead
NBCNews.com · By Shannon Pettypiece · October 20, 2025
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