Fraudulent Job Ads

We have issued a warning about fraudulent job advertisements for the group online. Among other things, the perpetrators hold interviews with applicants before, for example, asking for sensitive personal data, explains Ruth Schorn, our Chief Compliance Officer.

She is now receiving reports about occurrences of this type from all parts of the group. “Someone is using the KION name and publishing fraudulent job advertisements online or even verbally”, she reports.

Applicants can protect themselves by checking the KION Group website to see whether they are actually able to find the advertised position there, too. If applicants are unable to find the position on the website, they should call the our human resources department to clarify whether the opening actually exists. Data can be obtained only via our websites and should only be sent to the e-mail address provided on the websites. Applicants should only use contact information that is to be found on the our websites for this purpose.

In some cases fraudsters asked for sensitive private data by sending questionnaires attached to a forged employment contract. In other cases curing telephone calls or via email, the fraudsters told the applicant to be prepared to accept checks for purchasing work equipment that would be necessary in order to be able to work from home in future. This is by no means the practice at KION.

“To my knowledge no damage has resulted from this yet”, says Ruth Schorn. The scammers are very much on the go at the moment, however, and not only with regard to KION Group, so it is probably only a matter of time until an applicant’s data is misused for money laundering or other fraudulent activities. It is not possible to prevent this fraud technically, as Ruth Schorn explains. The scam does not work by manipulating the KION IT system.

To date, cases of this kind affecting KION are known from Poland, North America, and Brazil. Applicants are asked to provide personal information, and for example in the USA give their social security number. Fraudulent advertisements were placed, for example, for graphic designers or engineers. Applicants submitted application documents and never heard anything else from the scammers. These cases may involve identity theft.