Skip to main content

Image
never pay for a job

For lots of us, the holiday season is a good time to pick up some part-time work. It’s when retailers and delivery services need extra help — and it’s when some extra income wouldn’t exactly hurt. But if you’re thinking of getting a job to make some extra cash this holiday season, know that scammers are looking for you. Do you know how to spot them?

To keep your money and personal information to yourself, follow these steps: 

  • Don’t pay to get the job. Scammers may promise you a job — if you pay them. But no legitimate job will make you pay for expenses or fees to get the job. Anyone who does is a scammer.
  • Never give personal info up front. Some scammers will try to get your credit card, bank account, or Social Security number as soon as you’re in contact.
  • See what others are saying. Search online for the name of the company plus the words “review,” “complaint,” or “scam.” You might find they’ve scammed other people.
  • Talk to someone you trust — before you take a job offer or business opportunity. What do they think?

Learn more at ftc.gov/jobscams. And if you spot a job scam, tell the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

All during December, as we start reflecting on 2022 and making plans for 2023, follow along as we discuss ways for you to keep more of your hard-earned money by avoiding scams. We'll cover things like spotting scammers who ask for gift cards, what to do if your online order never arrives, as well as how to make sure your year-end donations go to the organizations you want — not to scammers.

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.

Erica
May 02, 2023

I got a email claiming to be Verizon it was spot on..they said I won a iphone 14:pro. Well I was excited at first but then I'm like well just shipping for 9$ that sounds too good to be true. I looked up the .com's associated with the page and all I saw was scam this scam that so..I reported it as spam.

Carla Rosana Pires
January 24, 2023

Good evening! I am happy to be part of the website of the American Government. My name Carla Rosana, I was born and live in the south of Brazil. And through you getting the alert information, it makes me feel safer. Because in my country, it suffers from a huge wave of hackers, and mainly scammers

Debee
January 24, 2023

Yes , People should know this important information.

Tracy Croich
January 24, 2023

Thank you. I had an experience 5 years ago. And as a phone banker, I hear people falling victim to these scams a lot. And Sweetheart scams are also heartbreaking-although they are not job scams.

We appreciate your work and keeping the public informed.