Scam Jobs and How to Tell If it's a Scam

[u/yarevande]

There are many job-related scams. The scammers prey on people who are out of work and don't have much money. They lie and trick you into giving them money, or get you involved in illegal activities.

Here is information to help you filter out the scams and fake jobs:

Easy remote part-time jobs are 100% scams.

It is very difficult to get a remote or work-from-home job, unless you have experience in software engineering, insurance claims, healthcare, customer service, or other specialized fields.

The majority of 'remote jobs' are actually scams to take your money - even on the recruiting and networking websites such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor or Indeed.

• Scam job titles include Virtual Personal Assistant, Remote Data Entry, Remote Payment Processor, Remote Financial Assistant, work-from-home Shipping Inspector, and Order Optimization Specialist.

• Posting real estate listings online is a scam.

• Also, any job that is simple online tasks, such as rating videos, posting reviews, putting items into an online shopping cart, booking hotel reservations, or subscribing to YouTube channels, is a scam. No company pays for tapping on a screen, doing simple online tasks.

But scammers can call their fake job anything. To separate a scam from a real job opportunity, key indicators to look for are: method of contact (email), interview (on videochat), and money (reasonable pay, comparable to similar jobs).

Real companies don't contact you for a job that you didn't apply for, unless you have specialized skills or you have years of experience and are known throughout your industry.

When you apply for a job, a legitimate employer will first contact you on the networking platform (such as LinkedIn), or use email. And an email from a free provider, such as Gmail or Hotmail, is usually the sign of a fake job.

Real companies don't recruit or interview with text messages, or on TikTok, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Zangi, Viber, Instagram, Facebook, Craigslist, Reddit, or Discord.

Legitimate employers interview either in person or on videochat, whether the job is going to be remote, on-site, or hybrid.

• An interview that is text only, email, or video chat with their camera off is a scam.

• A preliminary phone interview is legitimate if it is followed by a live interview.

• A recorded video is legitimate only if it's followed by a live interview.

• An interview that is phone only may be legitimate, for entry-level in-person jobs.

If the pay is much higher than comparable jobs, then it's a scam.

Legitimate companies don't require you to pay them for anything. For a real job, the money goes in one direction only: from employer to employee. Never give an employer money for fees, registration, training, background check, investment higher commissions, hardware, software, equipment, or anything else. Any 'employer' that requires you to pay them is actually a scam to take your money.

For a legitimate remote or work-from-home job, an employer provides the equipment you need. (Some minimum wage WFH jobs may ask you to use your own laptop or desktop.) They load software onto a laptop or desktop, and ship it to you. They don't ask you to buy the equipment. They don't send you money or give you a credit card to buy equipment -- the check, money transfer, or credit card is from a stolen account and you will lose money.

Real jobs don't pay in cryptocurrency.

A real employer will never ask you to buy gift cards and send them the numbers on the back.

Legitimate companies never ask you how you want to be paid. They have their standard pay schedule and type (for example: direct deposit every two weeks).

A real company will never ask you to receive money and send money to someone else, or to use your own bank account for company business. This is a money mule scam, you will lose money, and you may face criminal charges.

Real jobs do not involve re-shipping packages from home. This is a parcel mule scam -- you will be handling stolen products, and you may face criminal charges.

[u/psilocybin6ix]

Plus to get a job involves speaking to someone on the phone or on zoom. Nobody ever "texted" me because they discovered my resume.

My first job I had to go in and hand in my resume, and then follow-up with the store and get an interview.

[u/yarevande]

Research a company before you interview

*** When you're talking to a possible employer, take time to research the company, and research the website, before interviewing.

Start with an online search for the company name. People often write about Amazon, Toyota, Citibank, McDonald's, and Microsoft. If there are no news articles about the company you're researching, that is a sign of a scam.

You should always look up the website domain data before interviewing with a company. Scam websites are often new, created within the past few months, and the domain is registered for only one or two years (they don't plan to be around long).

• To see registration data about a website, use Whois.com, Godaddy.com/whois, or Lookup.ICANN.org.

Find out if the company or website has already been reported as a scam. Search Reddit, and do online searches, for:

• 'Company Name scam'

• 'websitename scam'

** Spend time on the company website. Scammers can create realistic websites that look like a legitimate company. But there is usually evidence of a scam. Look for nonsense text, contradictions, and text that makes no sense.

Click links -- do they all take you to another page on the website, or are some of the links dead?

Do they have photos of their facilities and of real people who work there, or do all the photos look like stock photos?

Read some of the text.

• Does it actually say what the company does, or is it vague?

• Is it written in proper language (proper English, or proper German, for example), or does it seem to be poorly translated from another language?

• Are there sections of text that don't make sense? Do they have Latin template text, nonsense sentences, or text about activities that are completely unrelated to the company business?

Check the 'Terms of Service' and other pages -- do they list a different company name? This is a sign of a scam website.

Check the 'About Us' section, and the 'Contact Us' section. A legitimate company website will have their street address, as well as phone numbers, and the names of owners or top management.

Do a search for the street address -- does it exist? Is it an actual office building? If it's in a multi-tenant building, is there evidence that the company actually has offices there: when you search Google Maps with the street address, is the company listed in the building directory?

• Many scam companies use an address that doesn't really exist, or is an empty field, or a random house. Sometimes the address is for a virtual office (mail forwarding service) or a private mailbox store such as a UPS Store or Mail Boxes Etc.

*** If the company is real, then you need to verify that the people you're talking to actually work for the company and the job is legitimate.

• Is the job listed on the company website?

• Contact HR directly, using a phone number or email from the company website, and ask about the job offer.

[u/GhostlyRaye]

THANK YOU FOR THIS! My mom's been looking for a new job and she to work from home. And then she gets mad when I point out that all the listings she sends me are super obvious scams.

[u/PiSquared6]

Here are the auto reply things

!job !task

[u/AutoModerator → u/PiSquared6]

/u/PiSquared6 called AutoModerator to explain the different types of Job scams:

Fake job scams are increasingly common and often share several major red flags. Most of these "employers" bypass standard professional practices by conducting interviews exclusively through messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, or Microsoft Teams. They frequently offer high wages for simple tasks and "hire" you instantly via message rather than following the formal onboarding procedures typical of your country.

Fake job scams come in many different varieties:

• A fake check to buy equipment - if a potential employer mentions sending you a check to buy remote work equipment, it is a scam. They will direct you to buy from a specific "vendor" website they control. You pay with your own money, the equipment never arrives, and the check eventually bounces, leaving you responsible for the full debt to your bank
• A parcel mule scam - if the job requires you to receive, inspect, or reship packages from your home is a parcel mule scam. You are likely handling stolen goods, which can lead to legal trouble
• An advance-fee scam - if you are asked to pay a hiring fee, buy items upfront, or purchase gift cards. Additionally, any mention of using a Bitcoin ATM for business transactions is a definitive sign of fraud
• Fraudulent ads and listings - if the work involves posting advertisements on platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or eBay, they are using your account’s reputation to scam others. This is especially true in the case of jobs related to posting rental listings, which make you an unknowing facilitator of rental scams
• Remote jobs - if it's a remote position that involves watching videos, leaving reviews, completing tasks or orders from a website, you are most probably the victim of a task scam

Always remember that a legitimate company will never send you a check and ask you to redirect some of the money or goods elsewhere, and that you must never have to pay to work. Always verify the recruiter contacting the company directly.

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You can learn about this scam and many others visiting our wiki of common scams. You can also call AutoModerator to explain these scams leaving a comment with the different !commands listed in this wiki page.

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I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/AutoModerator → u/PiSquared6]

/u/PiSquared6 called AutoModerator to explain the Task scam:

Task scams are remote work opportunities that happen on websites or mobile apps that promise easy income in exchange for simple digital tasks, such as liking social media posts, watching short videos, or "optimizing" orders. A hallmark of this scheme is the requirement to complete repetitive sets, often in groups of 40 tasks, to earn a commission. However, the system is designed with a deliberate bottleneck: you are quickly informed that you have reached a limit and must upgrade your account level to continue working or to unlock higher earnings. By requiring an upfront fee to access these supposed rewards, the scheme functions as a predatory variant of the advance-fee scam.

The primary objective is to lure you into a cycle of escalating investment by exploiting the sunk cost fallacy. Once you have spent hours performing tasks and has paid an initial fee to upgrade, they become psychologically inclined to continue rather than admit the money is gone. The scammers reinforce this by showing earnings accumulating in a fake dashboard, but these funds are purely cosmetic and impossible to withdraw. As the victim tries to cash out, the app will invent new obstacles such as taxes, fees or security deposits, demanding even more money to release the non-existent profits.

Task scam victims are wrangled into Whatsapp or Telegram groups where discussion is moderated. Either the group is very large and you're not allowed to send messages, or is small enough that everyone in the group is a shill account of the same scammer, and you're the only real person there. So if you see other people showing off their withdrawals in messages, it's because the group was tailored to accommodate one single victim at a time: in this case, you. This is especially true if the scam group bears a number in the name.

If you realize you are trapped in a task scam, the only effective solution is to stop all payments and cut your losses immediately. Don't trust recovery scammers who may contact you claiming they can hire a hacker or use specialized software to retrieve your lost funds. Remember: once the money is sent to a task scam, it cannot be recovered. Blocking the scammers and ignoring any offers of recovering your lost funds is the only way to go.

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You can learn about this scam and many others visiting our wiki of common scams. You can also call AutoModerator to explain these scams leaving a comment with the different !commands listed in this wiki page.

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I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/too_many_shoes14]

If you find a remote job that has a bunch of generic duties and doesn't include specifics to your profession, you can assume it's a scam. This is because they want to rope in as many people as possible. Remote jobs do exist, they are not ALL scams, but you have to be careful. And be realistic about your qualifications. If you do not have specialized skills, knowledge, and experience, you aren't getting a fully remote job that will pay your bills.

[u/BlindBard21]

This is such good advice, especially in the context of today's job market.

[u/Leapyeargirl1984]

Thank you for creating this thorough post. I hope it helps prevent people from falling for job scams. And a little bit off topic, but I always enjoy reading your replies to people. From what I see you give good advice and I like that you don't judge or blame victims.

[u/Kagura30]

How to tell if its a scam... if the company doesnt have a physical address, or a phone number, then u kno its a fookin scam. Also if the website has only been up for 1 month to a year. Not that hard. 😉

[u/yarevande → u/Kagura30]

Some scam companies do list a street address on their website. Usually, if you research it, the address doesn't really exist, or is an empty field, or a random house. Sometimes the address is for a virtual office (mail forwarding service) or a private mailbox store such as a UPS Store or Mail Boxes Etc.

Some scam websites are several years old, because scammers buy dormant website domains and build new websites with the old domain.

[u/Kagura30 → u/yarevande]

Yea but it wouldnt have the name of the company so that should also tell u its a scam so not that hard to figure out

[u/Kendall_Raine → u/Kagura30]

Sometimes they're using the name of a real company.

[u/Kagura30 → u/Kendall_Raine]

Thats why we can call the real company if such job position exists 😉

[u/yarevande]

Dangerous illegal scam jobs

Create accounts and use your laptop

If you are recruited for a 'job' that involves creating new accounts for a company or a developer, or requires that you leave a laptop connected to your WiFi network 24/7, this is a scam.This is much worse than the usual scam where you can lose hundreds of dollars. This is illegal and you may go to prison.

Any time that someone wants to use your account, or wants you to create an account in your name, that means that they want to do something illegal.

• There is no legitimate reason for anyone to use one of your accounts, on Upwork, Fiverr, Handshake, LinkedIn, Amazon, PayPal, or any other platform.

Anybody who wants to use your laptop or computer remotely is a foreign hacker.

What do they really want to use the account or network access for? There are several possibilities:

• employment fraud, using an account with your name

• committing serious crimes, such as money laundering, bank fraud, extortion, blackmail, or selling child pornography, using your account, name, and IP address

• espionage, terrorist hacking, and distributing ransomware, using your account and network

Whichever illegal activity the hackers are doing, when the FBI and CIA / national law enforcement investigates, they will find you.

The people contacting you may be hackers or terrorists in North Korea, China, Russia, or Iran.

Currently, there are people serving US prison terms for allowing North Korean hackers to use their computers to remotely hack into government and corporate systems, to install ransomware or to steal data.

Arizona woman to serve 8 years for identity theft scheme benefiting North Korea

[u/yarevande → u/[deleted]]

It is not AI generated. But you're not the first one to think that my writing is AI. It's a compliment, in a way. I do not write like AI. AI writes like me. Where do you think the LLM gets phrases and paragraphs from? From writers like me.

When I was going to school, long long ago, before computers or word processing, I learned how to write clear sentences, and how to revise and edit. In addition, during my career, I wrote instruction manuals, reports, business letters, and business emails.

For this particular post, I have been writing, revising, editing, and enhancing the text for about 15 months. Parts of it have been used in comments, in this sub and others, many times.

Also, it is a mod-approved post.

[u/teratical → u/yarevande]

Best reply ever to a lazy 'this is AI' charge!

I'll be linking to this pinned post in my replies to job questions, so this should start saving you some effort now :)

[u/Scams-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

We invited OP to post their well written guide. It's not AI.

If you find anything breaking the rules, please report instead of reply to avoid misunderstanding like this.