JobFox.com Scam Class Action Lawsuit

A federal class action lawsuit claims Jobfox.com is taking advantage of desperate job seekers by advertising itself as a “free” website to help them find jobs, but uses automated, “canned” critiques of their resumes to try to get them to pay $350 to $500 to fix their resumes, regardless of their quality.

Lead Plaintiff Suzanne Werden is suing JobFox.com for fraud in the inducement, fraudulent misrepresentation, breach of contract, unfair competition and numerous consumer law violations.

She alleges in the JobFox.com class action lawsuit that JobFox does not inform users that they are not required to upload a resume to complete their registration with the website, and does not disclose the costs associated with its “resume advice network.”

JobFox then “systematically collects resumes from users, creates and sends these users critical and artificial ‘critiques’ of their resumes, and, based on the alleged problems identified in the critique, attempts to convince users to pay hundreds of dollars for Defendant to rewrite the resume,” she claims in the JobFox class action lawsuit.

JobFox.com tells users that each resume critique is done by a “JobFox resume expert” who provides “an ‘honest, straightforward assessment’ of the user’s current resume,” but JobFox actually provides an “automated, ‘canned’ critique that heavily criticizes the resume’s visual presentation, content, and writing style, regardless of the quality of the resume submitted by the user,” the JobFox class action lawsuit states.

Each critique “is nearly identical in form and contains numerous matching paragraphs, phrases and boilerplate criticisms,” and JobFox merely tries to mask the “canned” criticism by taking a small number of words and phrases from the users’ resumes and placing them within the critique at predetermined locations, the JobFox class action lawsuit continues.

JobFox concludes the critique by telling users their resume is “selling you short,” and that it should be “professionally” rewritten by JobFox.

Werden says she paid $399 for JobFox’s Resume Writing Service but was not happy with the changes to her resume, “many of which made her resume appear more generic than the original,” she claims in the class action lawsuit.

She says she tried to contact JobFox to request changes, but it refused to return her calls and emails – which is the typical response unhappy customers experienced.

It’s not just the Resume Writing Service she’s targeting, however; Werden also claims JobFox “systematically advertises expired and/or filled job listing to subscribers of JobFox’s premium monthly service (Premium Breakthrough Service), posts job listings without the consent of employers, and fails to provide adequate written contracts to such subscribers, conduct that expressly violates California statutes governing job listing services such as defendant.”

The JobFox scam class action lawsuit is brought on behalf of all U.S. residents who received a resume critique from JobFox and purchased its Resume Writing Service. It is also seeking to represent a subclass of all California residents who registered and paid money for JobFox’s Premium Break Through Service. It is seeking damages, including statutory and punitive damages, and an order prohibiting JobFox from engaging in the fraudulent conduct alleged in the complaint.

A copy of the JobFox Scam Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.

The case is Suzanne Werden v. JobFox, Inc., Case No. 11-cv-2995 WQHMDD, U.S. District Court, Southern District of California.