Job Scams Soar: Here’s How to Spot Bogus Employment Offers
Last updated April 3, 2026
Fraudsters are increasingly luring job seekers to apply for positions that don’t exist, often costing victims thousands of dollars.
Scammers are promoting fake jobs alongside legitimate ones, using online ads, job boards, social media, and newspapers. Cybercriminals also send unsolicited messages via email and text. These offers usually promote a high-salaried professional position or an “easy money” work-from-home gig with flexible hours. The goal: To trick you into providing personal information (such as Social Security and bank account numbers) and/or various traps that compel you to send them money.
Job Scams Skyrocket
Business/job opportunities ranked as the third-highest category on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) 10 Top Fraud list for 2024. Both the number of victims and reported losses have increased dramatically in recent years.
In 2024, the FTC received over 126,000 employment complaints, an 18 percent increase from the previous year. From 2020 to 2024, reported losses jumped from $90 million to $501 million. Job scams tend to be expensive: The median loss per victim was $2,250, second only to investment scams.
Criminals have taken advantage of the shift to remote work because they never need to meet with applicants. They can handle everything through text, email, or video calls.
“It certainly makes it easier for them to scam you, because you’re not meeting in person; you’re not going to an office or store location to meet your potential new boss, as you used to,” Nofziger told Checkbook.
Work-from-home “opportunities” range from reshipping packages and envelope stuffing (old school, but still around) to data processing and rating videos.
How Many Victims Lose Thousands of Dollars
Here’s how they trick you: At-home job scams often involve fake checks. The new “employer” (fraudster) sends the “new employee” (you) a check to cover work expenses or office supplies/equipment. The check is always for more—sometimes thousands more—than is needed.
You’re told to deposit the check and return the excess funds. “And they’re going to request money in a weird form,” said Amy Nofziger, director of fraud victim support at the AARP Fraud Watch Network. “They’re going to ask you to go to a crypto ATM machine, or to send money via a peer-to-peer app, like Venmo, Cash App, or Zelle. They might even ask you to buy them prepaid gift cards.”
Banks are required by law to make funds available quickly, so after you deposit the fake check, the funds will show up in your account within a few days. But because it’s a forged check, it hasn’t actually cleared; it will take weeks before it’s found to be counterfeit. When that happens, your bank will reverse the deposit, and you’ll be responsible for the full amount. If you’ve already paid back the scammer for the overpayment you’ll be on the hook for the loss.
How to Spot Common Work-at-Home Scams
Many job scams involve performing tasks that aid scammers in wider crimes.
Reshipping Scams
As a “delivery operations specialist” or “quality control manager,” your job will be to receive shipments, repackage them, and send them to another address. The bogus job listings may even falsely claim affiliation with companies like Amazon or FedEx.
Here’s what they don’t tell you: You’ll be processing expensive products that were purchased with stolen credit cards and sending them to the scammers at another address (often international), to hide their location from authorities.
“Reshipping goods is never a real job,” the FTC cautions.
Task Scams
With these jobs, scammers want you to do simple, repetitive tasks, such as “liking” videos, rating products, or clicking links. According to the FTC, the scammers make these do-nothing jobs sound legit by describing them as “product boosting” or “optimization tasks,” but getting paid to rate or like things online is “illegal, and no honest company would do it,” the FTC warns.
Mystery Shopper Scams
What could be better than getting paid to shop? There are real mystery shopper jobs, but many are scams. Honest mystery shopping companies don’t ask you to pay for certifications or job directories—they pay you for completed assignments. Mystery shopping jobs are typically part-time work that don’t pay enough to replace a full-time job. Only scammers guarantee big earnings.
Don’t respond to any ads that claim to be with the Mystery Shoppers Professional Association (MFPA). The MFPA does not solicit mystery shoppers. It lists companies that use mystery shoppers on its website.
Going Down the Rabbit Hole
When Stephen Johnson received an unsolicited text offering him quick money for doing tasks for The Home Depot, he decided to respond. Johnson, a senior writer at Lifehacker.com, knew it was a scam and wanted to see what would happen.
The pay was good. He could earn up to $45,600 a year for “evaluating and rating products and providing real IP and device data for uploading.”
Before he accepted the job, Johnson texted the fraudsters to ask if this was a scam, and they assured him it was not.
To learn about his training session, he would need to switch to WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service. As Johnson noted in his story, this would allow the scammers to continue communicating with him if the phone company blocked their number.
Johnson was instructed to visit a website, purportedly operated by Home Depot, for training, and he would be paid for doing so.
“They had an account balance listed for me of $60,” Johnson told Checkbook. “They had me click on these different products, and it would add incremental amounts like $0.35, $0.45 for each thing, as if it were digital piecework. And I could watch my account balance grow until I had like $75.”
It seemed like “an easy part-time online job,” Johnson remembered thinking. “I could easily see how somebody would be fooled by this, because it was very convincing.”
Once training was complete, it was time for the first assignment, which would pay even more. But “to be eligible” for that, he needed to send the company $33 via Cash App. Johnson decided he’d seen enough, so he asked to withdraw the money from his account. To do that, he was told to pay the $33.
After a few weeks, the site disappeared, so anyone who had paid the company to work for them would have no way to get their money back.
As Johnson reminded readers in his story: “There’s a 99.9999 percent chance that any unsolicited text offering you a job leads to a scam.”
Protect Yourself
These tips from the AARP Fraud Watch Network and FTC will help you avoid employment scams:
Never pay a fee. If you’re required to pay to get a job or an interview, it’s a scam. Legitimate companies don’t require upfront payments for training or anything else needed to get the job.
Distrust big promises. You can’t work a few hours a week and make big money. Promises of “fast cash for minimal work” are bogus.
Be skeptical. Reputable sites like LinkedIn and Indeed are not immune to fake job posts. Be on guard and look for the warning signs of a scam. If you’re offered a job you didn’t apply for, it’s a scam. And real employers don’t hire without an interview.
Verify the employment offer. Go online to make sure the company is real and that they are hiring for that position. If you’re contacted by a recruiter, search their name and company with words like “scam,” “review,” or “complaint” to see what you can find out about them. Recruiters generally email from a corporate account, not from a personal email such as Gmail or Yahoo!.
Don’t share sensitive personal information before you’re hired. Scammers claim they need your driver’s license, Social Security, or bank account numbers to fill out “employment paperwork. Don’t provide this information until you are certain you’ve been hired for a real job.
“Listen to your gut,” Nofziger advises. “Does this seem right? If your gut says no, listen to it.”
Get Help
If you’ve already shared personal information with a scammer, go to IdentityTheft.gov/steps for advice on how to protect yourself. You can also visit the Identity Theft Resource Center’s Victim Help Center or call 888-336-9044 to speak to an expert adviser for one-on-one guidance.
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FTC Tips on spotting job scams:
Contributing editor Herb Weisbaum (“The ConsumerMan”) is an Emmy award-winning broadcaster and one of America's top consumer experts. He has been protecting consumers for more than 40 years, having covered the consumer beat for CBS News, The Today Show, and NBCNews.com. You can also find him on Facebook, Blue Sky, X, Instagram, and at ConsumerMan.com.