Dozens duped by fake online employment ad about job opening at a Winnipeg coffee shop

Normally, most small business owners would not complain about people flocking to their shop.

But this dream scenario quickly became a nightmare for a coffee shop on south Osborne Street, after it was discovered the customers were actually job seekers who got duped.

Janis Urniezius, owner of Park Line Coffee, told CBC Radio's Up To Speed host Julie Dupré that the whole charade was caused by a fake job posting on Indeed.com — an online job search engine.

The posting — which has since been taken down — advertised a part-time position at the coffee shop, and included a job description and information about wages and hours, Urniezius said.

"It was a really well written ad," she admitted.

The coffee shop owner started getting suspicious after receiving a lot of calls and visitors, asking about the job opening.

"Then someone mentioned, 'Didn't you post a job on Indeed?'" Urniezius said.

Urniezius estimates between 40 and 50 people have inquired so far, but says there are still more calls coming in.

It's to the point where the coffee shop had to change the outgoing voicemail message to address the hoax, and posted a warning to social media.

"It was inconvenient at the time, because it was a very busy time of year for us leading up to New Year's," Urniezius said.

"But it doesn't impact us. I'm not the victim."

Job scams are a prevalent threat, according to a member of the RCMP.

Jeffrey Thomson, a senior intelligence analyst, said in a statement that the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre received 1,251 reports of jobs scams, as of Aug. 31, 2019.

"Canadians need to recognize that scammers are creating fake job offers and trolling online employment sites in efforts to recruit potential victims," Thomson said.

The scams vary from "mystery shoppers scam, financial agent scams and re-shipping scams," he said.

More than 450 people who reported scams are victims, with a total reported loss of $1.5 million, he added,

Thomson advises people to never respond to unsolicited texts or emails, be wary of companies that do not have their own domain in their email address, and says people should contact their financial institution if money is deposited to their account.

Lastly, he warns that "if a job sounds too good to be true, it is."

In a statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Indeed said the company employs a variety of techniques to review job advertisements and has a team dedicated to ensuring their quality and suitability.

"Indeed reserves the right to remove any job postings that do not meet our standards and we encourage job seekers to report any suspect job advertisements to us, or if they feel it necessary, to make a report to the police," the statement says.

If anyone has applied for a job then learned it was a scam, they need to report it to their local police and alert the credit bureau, RCMP says.