Fake recruiters and job offers

Check this example →

How it works

1. A message or email says your CV or profile impressed them. It’s often a real company’s name and logo.
2. The “interview” is a chat in a messaging app. You’re hired quickly.
3. Onboarding asks for your ID, your address and your bank details. These are used for identity theft.
4. In the cheque version, they send you a cheque “for equipment”, you pay a vendor they pick, and the cheque bounces days later. You owe the bank.

The tells

• You never applied, and the offer is better than the work warrants.
• The contact uses a free email address or a chat app, not the company’s domain.
• No video call, no named interviewer you can find independently.
• Money moves toward you first, then you must send some of it onward.
• They want ID and bank details before a contract.

What to do

• Find the company’s official careers page yourself. Does the role exist there? Does the recruiter appear on the company’s own site?
• Reply only to an address on the company’s domain that you found yourself.
• Don’t cash a cheque and spend or forward any of it. See Overpayment and fake cheques.
• If you gave ID and bank details: tell your bank, consider a fraud alert or credit freeze where you live, and watch your accounts.

Where to report it