Quick Grafter Work Website Review

This is not really an in-depth review, as I haven't used Grafter to the level needed to write a full review. This post is more of a "my experience" so far type of entry. If you're looking for temporary / short term work you may have come across a site called Grafter. If not you might be asking the question:

What is Grafter: It's basically a website where employers and those looking for a few days / weeks work connect. Employers advertise short term work, and if you're registered on Grafter and fit the criteria, you might get selected to "apply" for the job. If you apply and actually get chosen for the position, you do the work and get paid through the Grafter system. Easy!

Well, that's what is meant to happen. Sounds really good. Some quick work, a few days here and there, no long term commitments. But to be honest, I've been a Grafter member for around 2 years now. I have a profile with a picture of myself, that's fairly well written (something you need to fill out in order to be considered for jobs), I've got experience in numerous sectors that are in demand, I also get many new job offers from Grafter which are close to my location, I have my own transport and safety wear, but yet I have never even had so much as one days work from Grafter. Absolutely nothing.

Most of the time I get offers for work, I respond by applying for the job and just don't hear anything back. Other times, some of the jobs offered are a bad match. They're either really far away, or in a job sector that I have not listed on my profile. So technically I should not be getting sent the job because I have set up my account to only be considered for jobs that fall within the job sectors I have experience with, and within a certain distance I'm willing to travel to work from my location.

I can't comment on how reliable they are in terms of getting paid, employers not paying etc, because I've never had any work from them what so ever. I may update this post if I do happen to get any work from Grafter. If I could choose one word to describe Grafter so far it would be: Terrible. I should add, though, I don't think its a full-on scam and that no one at all ever gets work. I'm sure some people have had some work from them.

I just suspect that Grafter could potentially have a lot of fake jobs listed because they are trying to grow their business and increase the amount of people, workers and employers alike, in order to make it look more popular than it is. A fake it till you make it type method. Just my opinion of course. But this is nothing new. Lots of websites and companies do this.

Some do it themselves to help speed up growth (generate more real users) and others are just abused by people (registered members / fake employers) looking for leads / personal details from the people applying to the jobs. Some do both. Which one is Grafter, I don't know. However, this post reminds me a bit of the other post I wrote about the many fake jobs being advertised on Indeed. Anyway if I happen to get any work from Grafter I'll update the blog with my experience.

More Indeed Jobs That Don't Exist

Where is the line drawn when it comes to taking advantage of people who are going through hard times? Is there a limit, some moral ground, where companies will reach a point where their combined consciences will make an appearance and they will think to themselves - Nah, we can't do that, it's too unfair on the people.

Well, sorry to break the bad news, but it appears that any level of moral ground, empathy, or even plain old respect, has been replaced by an almost blood thirsty lust for money. And they don't care what lies they have to tell you to get it, just as long as they get that money.

As the title says, More Indeed Jobs That Don't Exist. What I'm talking about here, is the companies that are not just advertising fake jobs, as discussed here, but also looking to get people already short on cash to start travelling around to training centers in the hope of landing a job, only to be left disappointed when they realise they have been completely taken advantage of.  Need more confirmation of this, tempted to apply? Just read some of the reviews. One star ratings all the way.

By that stage, the company that sent the person on the training course have completed their slice of the transaction (getting the person receiving some kind of Government assistance to go on a training course that leads nowhere), and that's the deal done, regardless of what happens next. Just so long as the course is completed. For each person they refer to the scheme, they get paid.

So they advertise jobs that don't exist to generate the leads, get desperate people to sign up for the course, waste the individuals time by sending them to a "training center" everyday, with the promise of a job at the end of it of course, then cast the person aside afterwards. With no job or anything else gained other than money for the fraudulent company that sent them on the fake job course.
 

Benefit Scam Job Training

These companies make me sick. One company that was advertising in this manner on Indeed, is the Castle View Group. I applied for one of their "Vacancies". Surprisingly, I got a call back! That's sarcasm by the way. The representative for Castle View Group had her script mastered and proceeded to read the dummy cards to me. Sounded promising - Sounds like I'll be in work by Monday! Then, the last question: Are you claiming any Government assistance at all, any benefits.

I said no, nothing. Why? Oh, no reason, she said. Suddenly, the woman wanted to end the call. And she did. The excuse of - OK, I've got all the information I need from you for now, someone will be calling you back tomorrow. That callback never came. And I'm glad it didn't. Because a few clicks of research later and I quickly discover what the Castle View Group is all about.

Not claiming benefits equates to me being ineligible for the scam course they wanted to send me on. Ultimately translating to me having no commission potential, meaning I was useless to them. Surely there is a law against this type of false advertising, not to mention defrauding Government funds by using immoral means to generate leads. Seem crazy that these companies actually get away with it.

More Disclosure Required

However, there has been a small change in the way Castle View Group now advertise on Indeed, or any site for the matter. Perhaps with all the complaints, Indeed, or maybe even company regulators made them change the wording in their ads, so it now reads as " Castle View Group - Training". I find this very funny, because I can almost guarantee you, from that small but extremely significant change, their fraudulent, purposely vague lead generation machine has taken a huge hit. And profits are certainly not what they once were when they weren't using full disclosure, and not telling people they were being sent on a useless training course.

Also be aware: Obviously, to reach a wider audience, this company is using other job websites to post their ads. One of those is Totaljobs. The ads show up on Indeed because most of the big job sites are using an RSS feed or API to display the results from other websites. Just something to be aware of.

Beware Of Fake Jobs On Indeed UK

Indeed, the job search website, has become a prime location for shady companies to use in order to fish for leads / personal details. And the sad thing about it is, it's extremely effective. How do I know this? From personal experience. Almost every time I apply for a job on Indeed UK, the next day there's several new unknown numbers calling me up. And they all have the same thing in common. They are all spam calls.

Admittedly, out of laziness, or just convenience, I have been using Indeed quite a lot to apply for jobs. So when it comes to the other job sites, like Totaljobs, Jobsite etc, I'm not sure how well they handle the fake job problem. But I will say, I have used other websites, including Totaljobs, a few months ago and never had any problems with fake jobs. So maybe their listing processes are more strict.

With Indeed UK its so blatantly obvious. I apply for jobs, and the next day I'm inundated with spam mobile calls. Their rules and regulations for listing a job must be as easy as listing an item for sale on Gumtree. I don't give my phone number or details out to anyone. But they are on my CV, and of course, that is being sent to every job or "employer" (scammer) that I am applying to.

And the next day (I usually apply for jobs on the night) I'm getting calls from strange numbers. Usually I wouldn't answer them, but with the hope that it may be good news about a job I recently applied for, I feel compelled to answer the phone. After dealing with this for a while, and being let down every time, my compelled, excited frame of mind has frizzled away and been replaced by suspicion. Now I don't even answer the phone anymore if the incoming call is from a number I don't recognise.

After the call has ended, and the missed call has been logged, I go and do a search on the Internet for the number. What do I find? Complaints from other people on sites like who-called.co.uk. With close to all the calls I receive after applying for jobs on Indeed, basically all of them are spam, either related to PPI, fake phone contracts, car crashes that never happened, or some other ridiculous lie.

Some of these scammers are now using smarter tactics. Rather than just phoning up using strange numbers, like 0303, or the one that rang me today, 0441280811434, a select few now take the location details of where a person is from, such as Birmingham, London etc, and send those details to the target victims local scamming call center. So in my case the numbers calling me start with 0121, which is the area code for Birmingham.

Their success rate from doing this must have sky rocketed. But that won't last long once people become aware of their sneaky tactic. It didn't take long for me to realise what they were up to. And now, regardless of the area code, I won't answer before I've researched the number online. If its legit I will call them back.

What's the answer to this growing issue? I'm pretty sure new laws were recently put in place that were meant to prevent this kind of thing happening anymore, but the cold callers haven't seemed to take much notice. Like their calls to me, it's fallen on deaf ears.

I've considered removing most of my personal details from my CV, including using a phone number that I don't care about, and a throw away email address. But what I have started to implement already is researching the companies that are advertising on Indeed that I'm interested in applying to, and instead of using Indeed to apply, going over to the employers company website and submitting my application there instead.

Either that or I only apply to jobs that have a "Apply on Company website" button. The jobs that have the "Easily apply for this job" next to them, or any job where an individual sends the CV through Indeed are, in my experience, the ones much more likely to be fake. Indeed really need to address this problem as it seems to be happening more often.

And I mean, just think of all the details these low life companies are getting from using this method to generate potential leads. There is so much information about an individual on a CV. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a hundred cloned people out there who are now using my details as fake identity.