Fraudulent Jobs Take Advantage of Hopeful Job-Seekers

Mass layoffs, talk of recession, all the people talking online about how hard it is to get a job these days – now is not a great time to be a job seeker! But it is a great time to be a scammer. If you’re searching for your next employer, scammers have tons of fraudulent jobs they’d love to “hire” you for. But while the work isn’t real, the losses sure are.

Learn the warning signs of a fraudulent job so you can find a new employer without being scammed!

Why Scammers Post Fraudulent Jobs

Scammers want money. That’s always what they’re after. Whether they can trick you into sending it to them, get access to take it directly, or get something from you that they can sell, they’re targeting you to make a profit. So how do they get money out of offering fraudulent jobs?

There are a surprising number of ways scammers can make a profit from these scams. Here are their most common tactics.

Getting You to Send Money

This is the classic employment scam. The scammer posts a job that looks great. It’s almost always a work-from-home position with great pay. You apply. They may even do an interview process with you, just to make it look more legitimate. In the end, you get hired. But before you can start, there’s some things you need.

This could be equipment, training, or anything else that they can come up with that fits the story they’re telling you. Whatever the story, it’s not free. They need you to pay for it. Often they’ll claim that they’ll reimburse you with your first paycheck. Or they may mail you a check and tell you to deposit the check and then send the money to pay for it.

You can probably guess what happens next. If they told you that they’ll reimburse you, that reimbursement never comes. And if they sent you a check, the check bounces, while any money you sent is gone.

Getting Your Information

Another very common way scammers try to get money is through your personal data. They can either use it to steal your identity and access your credit or existing accounts, or they can sell it to other scammers who want to steal your identity or target you with other scams. There are a huge variety of ways they can do this. They could send you a phishing link or malicious attachment claiming it’s more information about the job or the application process. When you click or open the attachment, it installs spyware that steals info on your device.

More often, though, they use the hiring process as an excuse to get you to hand over your information. They might ask for personal information, like social security numbers or copies of ID, in the application. Sometimes they set up an interview that has to go through a very specific messaging app which requires personal information to sign up. In reality, the app is fake, and the scammers can see any information you put in. If they actually do an interview, they may directly ask you for personal information, or they may try to get the answers to common security questions. In some cases, they skip the interview, go right to “you’re hired!” and ask you to fill out hiring forms. These forms, of course, ask for details like your social security number and bank information.

Using You to Commit Crimes

If you’re looking for a job, you’re looking for a legitimate job with a legitimate paycheck. But sometimes scammers use fraudulent jobs to trick innocent job hunters into aiding in their crimes.

A very common one is reshipping. The fraudulent job posting describes the role as receiving packages, repacking them, and shipping them somewhere else. It sounds easy, it’s always a work-from-home role, and often promises good money. But in reality, you’re receiving stolen goods, repackaging them to avoid suspicion, and sending them on to other criminals.

Another common one is turning you into a money mule. Money mules are people who help launder money by moving it around to disguise its criminal origins. One way they do that is using your bank account. The job may be to have you receive stolen money, keep a small part of it, and send the rest to someone else. Sometimes they ask you to send the money on with a service like Western Union, turning a traceable and refundable money transfer into an untraceable and unrefundable one.

The other way is to use you as a courier. Scammers like untraceable methods of payment, and that includes physical mediums like gold and cash. But if they convince a victim to pay that way, they need someone to pick up the funds. That’s where money mules come in. Your job might be to drive somewhere, pick up a package, and deliver it somewhere else. Little do you know, you’ve actually helped a scammer rob someone. (This can sometimes be dangerous. Last year, a courier was killed because the victim believed she was part of the scam.)

Accessing Your Connections

This version of a fraudulent job is less common, but much more sophisticated and harder to spot. In this case, the scammers aren’t even after you. They’re targeting your current organization or someone specific in your network.

By tricking you into applying for a fraudulent job, they can get a lot of information off your resume. They can use this information to pretend to be you on LinkedIn or get a better idea of how your organization works. Once they’ve established themselves as a legitimate recruiter to you, they can connect with you on LinkedIn or otherwise portray themselves as someone who knows you. Faking a mutual connection can help them get closer to their real target.

This one is so much harder to spot because you’re not the target. A lot of advice for spotting scams and fake opportunities is that they ask for money or a lot of personal information or want you to do suspicious things. But since you aren’t the target, the scammer won’t show you any of these signs.

How a Fraudulent Job Catches You

There are two ways scammers try to snare you with this scam. One is that they simply post their fraudulent jobs on job boards and wait for potential victims to apply. Job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed all have controls in place to try to filter out these fake job listings, but scammers are devious and some still get through. The other way is by impersonating a recruiter and messaging you, claiming to have a job you’ll be interested in.

Many fraudulent jobs target people who the scammers hope won’t know the details of how the job market is supposed to work. Young people looking for their first job, people who have been out of the workforce or in their previous job for a long time, or recent immigrants who may not understand how job hunting works in their new country make great targets for these scams. But even smart, savvy, aware people can be targeted – and can fall for it.

Signs of a Fraudulent Job

There are some signs you can look for to help you identify a fraudulent job before you get caught in a scam. Here are a few things to watch out for in every job listing or opportunity.

Unsolicited Contact

Unsolicited contact is one of the biggest warning signs of a scam. If a recruiter contacts you without prompting, be cautious. Part of recruiters’ jobs is to contact people who look like a good fit for the role they’re recruiting. That means that some of the contact you’ll get from recruiters will be legitimate. But it’s still important to be cautious.

Does the person you’re talking to sound professional? If it’s an email conversation, is their email address from the company’s official domain? Is a job description available, and does it seem appropriately detailed? Does the job sound like something a recruiter would think you’re a good fit for after looking at your resume or LinkedIn profile? (If you’ve spent the last decade as a corporate manager, suddenly being recruited for an engineering role should be suspicious.)

If it does sound like a position you’re interested in, take a few minutes to verify. Call the company or the company’s recruiting agent and ask if it’s a legitimate opportunity. If it is, feel free to move ahead. If not, you’ve found a fraudulent job.

Job Listing Warnings

If you’re on job listing websites, many fraudulent jobs are easy to spot if you know what to look for. The description of the job, what specific tasks you would be performing, and what skills they want applicants to have are often vague or generic. Sometimes the listings just talk about the job and the benefits of it without even listing tasks or job duties or the skills required. “Reshipping,” “data entry,” and “mystery shopper” are common titles for fraudulent jobs, but they are by no means the only options.

The biggest warning sign of a fraudulent job is that it’s too good to be true. Everyone wants a work-from-home job where they can work whenever they want and make a lot of money for doing very little. So that’s what these jobs try to be. Often, but not always, they are remote, and many offer a flexible schedule. Almost all of them offer significantly higher salaries than you would expect for what the job is. If the job itself seems way too easy for the pay, you should assume it’s a scam.

Requiring Personal Info Too Early

Your employer does legitimately need your date of birth, your social security number, your bank account information, and copies of your ID and other relevant documents. But they don’t need that until they are your employer. Some scammers try to ask for personal information way too early in the process.

No company needs your bank account information until after you’re hired. No real job application needs your social security number. A real company would use a well-known service like Zoom, WebEx, or Microsoft Teams to do an interview, not a messaging app that requires your personal information to sign up. And no legitimate job would want you to fill out hiring forms before you’ve even had an interview.

Every company’s hiring process is a little different. But you should be able to expect an application to fill out, at least one interview, and a formal offer letter if you get hired. Keep your personal information personal until you have that offer letter in hand. And if they ask too early, it’s probably a scam.

Asking for Payment

The point of a job is for you to get paid, not the other way around. A real job would never ask you to pay them to work there. If there is required equipment or training, a legitimate employer should pay for it. Some employers do require you to purchase the equipment, but if they do, they will give you the option to pay for it up front or pay them back out of your first few paychecks. (A notable exception to this is in the trades, where most employers require new hires to have their own tools before they start. But since tools are required for trades apprenticeships, most tradespeople already have them – plus it’s much harder to get away with a fraudulent job in the trades since you can’t be an electrician or plumber remotely.)

Even if the company promises to pay you back for whatever equipment or training you need to purchase, it’s a scam. Legitimate businesses don’t do it that way. And they especially don’t ask you to pay for things using methods like Zelle or cryptocurrency, which scammers love. You should always be wary when those payment methods come up. But any time a job asks for payment in order for you to start, walk away – it’s a scam.

How to Avoid Fraudulent Jobs

The key to not getting caught in a fraudulent job is twofold. First, be aware. Know these scams are out there, and be on the lookout anytime you’re job hunting or someone contacts you with a job opportunity. Second, be suspicious. Don’t get carried away by the excitement of finding a great job listing, or act out of desperation if you’ve been out of work for a while. Scammers love it when you get emotional because you’re not thinking clearly. Be suspicious of every job opportunity that comes your way, It will help you avoid a scam.

When you find a role you’re interested in, start with research. Look into the company or the recruiter. Does the company exist? Does the recruiter and recruiting firm exist? Is the job listed on the company’s job board? Does the company’s website or social media pages look suspicious? Are the job description and required skills specific enough, and do they seem to fit the title and salary? Check the typical salary range for the job so you can tell if it’s suspiciously high. You can also contact the company directly to verify, and apply directly on the company website if you can.

Remember that a real employer will never ask you for money as part of the application or hiring process. They also won’t need your personal data until after you have a formal offer – which shouldn’t happen until after at least one interview. If you’re not sure if something is real, you can ask someone you trust if it seems strange to them. And always trust your gut. If it feels fishy, it probably is.

Report Fraudulent Jobs

If you’ve encountered a fraudulent job, you can report it. You don’t have to have lost anything to the scam or even interacted with the job listing at all. Reporting it helps protect other people from falling for it, lets law enforcement know what scams are out there, and helps investigations into scammer activity.

Most job listing websites and apps have an option for you to report a job. You can report it there as a scam or likely fraudulent for the administrators to look at. If a fake recruiter contacted you on a website or app, you can report them there, too. But take note of details like the job title, company, recruiter’s name, and recruiting agency, because you’ll need them to report elsewhere.

Once you’ve reported it to the website or app, report it to agencies. Report it to the FBI at ic3.gov, the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, the BBB Scam Tracker at bbb.org/scamtracker, and your state’s Attorney General at naag.org/find-my-ag. You can also get more tips for reporting scams by reading our Scam Report Preparation Guide.