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July is Military Consumer Month. Whether you’re a new recruit, a servicemember PCS’ing with your family, or a soon-to-be veteran, the FTC wants to share some ways to steer clear of rip-offs and scammers.

If you’re preparing to leave the service, you might be looking at ways to make a living while you’re exploring new career options. Maybe you’ve arrived at a new duty station and your spouse is looking for work. Today we’re talking about how to avoid job scams and bogus money-making schemes. Here are some things to know to sidestep potential pitfalls.

  • Scammers advertise jobs and business opportunities online in ads, on job sites, and social media. Search online for the name of the company or the person who’s hiring you, plus the words “scam,” “review,” or “complaint.” You might find out they’ve scammed other people.
  • Honest employers, including the federal government, will never ask you to pay to get a job. Anyone who does is a scammer. Honest employers also will never send you a check and then tell you to send them part of the money. That’s a fake check scam.
  • Success stories and testimonials might not be true or typical. Glowing stories of success could be fake or misleading, and positive online reviews may have come from made-up profiles.

Take some time to talk to someone you trust about ads for jobs or business opportunity offers. And learn more at ftc.gov/incomescams.

During the month, we’ll post more consumer know-how. Share it with your family, friends, and buddies. Tell them to follow Military Consumer on Facebook and Twitter to be part of the conversation. If you spot a scam, protect the military and veteran communities by reporting it. Let the FTC know at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.

  • We won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
  • We won’t post comments that include vulgar messages, personal attacks by name, or offensive terms that target specific people or groups.
  • We won’t post threats, defamatory statements, or suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity.
  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.

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