Australia's largest private vocational education network, Careers Australia, is buying data from job ad websites to target job seekers as it rapidly expands its call centre operations after a government crackdown on face-to-face sales.

In July, Brisbane teenager Troy Hatrick told the ABC he was inadvertently signed up to a $20,000 a year course in leadership and management after he had been called by Careers Australia.

He was looking for a job when he put his details into Jobify, a job search website that when Fairfax Media visited multiple times last week contained no contact numbers for employers and had no job links that worked.

Users are prompted to sign up and enter their details through a wizard that tells them in the fine print they are agreeing to be contacted by education providers.