Correction appended
Student Government re-launched its Jobs Board website Sept. 28 after seeing a series of fraudulent posts on the site over the past year.
However, the SG did not fix the website so that fraudulent posts cannot be made and looks to switch to a new website platform to create a new site in December.
The site was shut down for the first two weeks of September due to ongoing problems with phishing, a type of scam in which a user posts a fake job and takes a student’s money, The Eagle previously reported.
In phishing incidents, students will often inquire about a job posting and pay an “application fee” to their future employer, only to never hear back from the employer who posted the job.
It is hard to count how many students have had their money stolen through phishing since no students have reported incidents to the SG, said SG Secretary Kevin Sutherland.
The Secretary's office has known about the problems for a while and started taking action to fix the site this summer, Sutherland said.
While the site was shut down in the beginning of September, Sutherland and IT Director Alex Adamczyk worked to take down the fraudulent posts, Sutherland said.
The SG plans to post a document on the top or front of the Jobs Board website warning users of what fraudulent posts looked like and how to report them.
However, Sutherland has been unable to post this message because he doesn’t know how to edit the site, he said.
Former IT Director Jake Paul coded the site two years ago using a program called Ruby on Rail. Sutherland has not been able to find anyone who is familiar with the program to read the code and access editing privileges.
“The difficulty in modifying the Jobs Board underscores the need to move to a new platform that is easier for us to administer,” Sutherland said.
Sutherland said SG will create a new Jobs Board site on WordPress instead of trying to read the code on the old site.
Moving to a new website platform will enable the SG to create a new site, which will make it easier for future IT directors and the SG to access editing and management options, Adamczyk and Sutherland said.
They also chose to use WordPress because it is the program used for the SG’s main website, so all SG members would be able to edit the Jobs Board site. This will make it easier for SG members to manage the site and remove phishing ads.
Sutherland plans to make a feature that will allow students to alert the SG if there is a scam on the site. The current site's "report it" button doesn't work.
Sutherland hopes to launch the new site by December and plans to keep the existing Jobs Board site running until the new site is completed, he said.
Some students said they are relieved to know that the Jobs Board is back, safe to use and will continue to improve.
“I use the Jobs Board frequently for babysitting jobs and it is good to know that the site is back,” said Farah Ashraf, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.
This article previously stated that several students have not reported phishing scams on Jobs Board. In fact, no one has officially reported being scammed on the Jobs Board. It also said the SG found out about the scams this summer; the SG has known about the scams for a while, but started to try to fix the problem this summer. The article also stated that some projects for the site had to be put on hold. Instead, Sutherland and Adamcyzk want to add a "report it" button. There is a "report it" button now, but it does not work.
