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Avoid Jobs and money-making scams

We know that scammers advertise jobs and business opportunities because we’ve investigated and stopped many of them. Unfortunately, scammers are relentless and keep advertising online in ads, on job sites, and social media. Knowing some of the red flags will help you spot these scams.  

A bogus job could be anything from reshipping products to selling things from home. Some scammers advertise mystery shopper jobs and charge people for useless job listing services.  They may promise high earnings with little work, or tell you that you can start your own business easily and make money right away. We know that scammers will target anyone searching for a job or a business opportunity, but we have also seen money-making schemes that targeted or disproportionately affected Black and Latino communities.

If you’re in the job market or looking for a business opportunity, scammers are looking for you. They want your money and your personal information. Before you accept a job offer or enter a business opportunity, take some time to talk to someone you trust about it. Also, consider this:

  • Do an online search 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.
  • An honest potential employer 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.

Report any scams, fraud, or bad business practices to the FTC 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.

Cristina Cigar…
May 09, 2022

I've been looking for a job for a while. I posted my resume first on Monster, many scammers tried to contact me; I removed my resume and posted it on CareerBuilder, same happened, but scammers were calling me and offering me positions that I didn't apply for, I removed my resume from this site too, and started to look directly on the companies for the openings, this works. Scammers were posting jobs at locations were companies did not exist, and over the phone they are very convincing. I always trusted Indeed and here is were I was lately looking for jobs, but still scammers are using this site too.

Hessie Harris
May 05, 2022

. Many such advertisements are seen in comment section following legitimate articles. I ignore them.