At the same time that Universal Jobmatch was switched on, the DWP closed its existing processes supporting Job Search and Employer Services Direct, migrating its customers to the new system, and reported that 460,000 employers were posting jobs and the site was receiving over 6 million searches per day.
[3] Early controversy arose due to some of the people who registered with Universal Jobmatch being targeted by dubious organisations and individuals in financial scams.
[4] Channel 4 News ran a feature, in December 2012, which explained how this new government service was being used to obtain personal details of jobseekers.
From January 2013, Universal Jobmatch stated regularly on their relevant web pages that users should "never ever give out things like scanned passports, national insurance numbers or bank account details until a job offer has officially been made".
[20] Hacktivists created an plug-in addition for the Google Chrome browser to allow the automatic distribution of CVs to any recruiters through Universal Jobmatch.