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Lots of folks look for jobs during the holiday season to make some extra cash or pay bills. But scammers follow seasonal employment trends, too, advertising jobs the same way honest employers do. They’re looking for any opportunity to steal your money and personal information. Do you know how to spot them?

After posting jobs that look like the real thing on legitimate employment sites, scammers go through a careful process to try to lure you in. They might offer you the job and quickly ask for your personal information like your driver’s license, Social Security, or bank account number to fill out their “employment paperwork.” But if you share it, they might steal your identity. Learn more at ftc.gov/jobscams.

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

  • Never give out personal information before doing some research. Contact the company directly using a phone number or e-mail you know to be legitimate — not the one you got from the job posting.
  • See what others are saying. Search online for the name of the job and the company plus the words “review,” “complaint,” or “scam.” You might find they’ve scammed other people.
  • Don’t pay to get a job. Scammers may promise you a job — if you pay them. But no legitimate job will make you pay for expenses or fees for training or anything else to get the job. Anyone who does is a scammer.
  • Talk to someone you trust before you take a job offer or business opportunity. What do they think?

And if you spot a job scam, tell 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.

Alfred C. Avenoso Jr
December 06, 2023

Those horrible scammers!!!

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