Work from Home Job Scams – How to recognize them?

In this digital world there are numerous opportunities to work from home. It’s not only an option for students, retired people and housewives, but also a viable option to earn good and start your own business for youngsters.

But there are many scammers who are looking to dupe people looking for online jobs. So, we should keep ourselves aware of the kind of tricks these fraudsters pull to take advantage of you. The sad truth is that, the more needy and desperate you are to get a job or earn, the more vulnerable you are to get cheated online.

In this article we’ll show you how to recognize and avoid online job scams. This is applicable not only for websites but also sites like freelancer.com, or anywhere where you get your job offers or clients from.

Table of Contents

• How to recognize a fake job offer?
• How fake job offers can harm me?
• What actions can I take to avoid and deal with online job scams?

Look for the following signs to recognize fake job offers.

How to recognize a fake job offer?

Sign Number 1: Demand for money upfront

It is a scam if the person offering the job is asking for payment upfront. It can be called upfront fee, or registration fee or they can use other terms. They may say that it is a one-time payment for a licensed software, or workstation.

Ask yourself this – if you join any traditional office job, will the employer ask you to give him money to buy you your work computer or software? So, why will you do so in case of an online job.

That’s rule number 1. Once you see that, be assured that it’s a scam. So, don’t apply to such online jobs. If you see such job postings on freelancing sites like freelancer.in or fiverr.com, report their job postings to the site owners.

But do remember that there are websites now that requires payment for you to use their service, e.g. freelancer, upwork etc. There free membership is just enough, but they do provide some extra features if you take their premium membership, e.g. you can make more bids etc. I am not talking about these job boards, I am talking about job postings and other websites that offer you job directly.

Sign Number 2: Vague and badly crafted Job Ad

Though it’s a very simple and small point, but I have seen that it’s one of the most effective methods that’s a dead giveaway when it comes to identifying fraud job offers.

Check for wrong spellings or wrong grammar. I have noticed that even some genuine clients are not perfect in grammar. But if there are plethora of wrong spellings and grammar makes no sense, then it shows that the concerned person is not well educated (and hence probably is unemployed and desperate) or he’s is some hurry. More often than not, such postings are not legitimate.

Also, such fake websites and job listings are very vague in nature. They will just say – “Work from Home”, “Earn lakhs by working only 2-3 hours a day” etc. Any genuine job will have well defined job title and job description, e.g. “SEO manager required”.

Another small point that I have noted is that, most of these fake job ads target freshers, probably because they are most in need of a job, will work for less and do not have any work experience to recognize and differentiate real jobs from fake ones.

Sign Number 3: An offer you cannot refuse

Another red flag is an offer that is too good to be true. If the rate being offered to you is way beyond the industry standard, then it most probably is a scam.

Say if you apply for a simple retyping project and the rate is $50 per hour. Then be cautious, it may be a scam. After applying here, they’ll ask for payment for sure.

But some companies do pay good, and some countries have better pay-outs. So, be cautious but not paranoid.

It may also be case that they pay only if they use your work. For example, some websites pay even $150 and more per article/story you write, which sounds awesome. But they will pay only if they publish your article/story. So, rejection rates may be high on such sites. It’s not a fraud, just their terms of service.

Sign Number 4: Getting work done for free

Some scammers just want their work done for free.

Clients have the right to test their applicants and also to ask for samples of your work. But this should be short.

For example, to hire a transcriber for transcribing Youtube videos a test of 5-minutes or 10-minutes is more than enough. If I am asking someone to write an article on some topic as a test, 400-500 words are enough to assess his writing skills.

If the client is asking you to work for 3 to 5 hours for free, or asking you for long complete projects, then he most probably is a con. He will be able to use your work whether you get hired or not. The client may ask 5-10 applicants for free work by assigning them different jobs. This way he will get his work done without paying anything.

Most of the times, such scammers will offer you very high rates. That will make you work for them for free for long time. Even I fell into this trap once a few years back, so I can tell this from my experience. I was offered a 18 lakhs per annum job (around $30,000) and I worked for them for free for almost a week. The company looked genuine and I even visited their office. But later on, they declined to offer me job, but went on to use my work on their website and app. Entirely unethical!

So, as you can see, sometimes you will work for them for some time, before you get to know their reality. For example, one of our team members worked on a website giving CAPTCHA entry job. Once he earned $100 on that site, he was asked to pay $50 to receive his $100. It makes absolutely no sense.

So, never work for free for long duration. Prefer those websites that pay you daily, weekly or twice a month.

If you are asked for sample work, provide them a something that has already been used by you, e.g. a website that is already online or an article that is already posted etc. Afterall they just want to see a sample of your work and not use it.

Sign Number 5: Multiple similar websites

More often than not, scammers make multiple websites and not just one. They do so because some of their websites may get closed because of complaints.

So, if you encounter multiple websites that have different domain names, but are almost exactly alike in all other ways, then those websites are most probably scam sites.

Sign Number 6: Country of the job-provider

Though I do not want to sound racist or ultra-nationalist, but you need to avoid some nationalities, because there have been a lot of online scams emerging from some nations. To be safe prefer your own country or some other first world countries like United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia etc.

For example, when I provide my content creation and digital marketing services, I prefer clients from my own country, i.e. India. It enables me to talk to them over phone easily, even meet them.

If the job posting or the platform offering you job is from another country, better avoid it first, especially if you’re a beginner. If you’re experienced already, just be careful.

How fake job offers can harm me?

Apart from the obvious harm of losing your money and time, there are some other damages that can be done to you by these scammers.

Identity theft

What’s identity theft?

Some websites or clients require you to provide them your IDs, e.g. your picture, scanned copy of your passport, aadhaar card etc.

Some of these are genuine, but some may misuse these documents of yours. So, only provide your IDs to those sites that are very famous and you are absolutely sure that they are genuine.

If it a scam site, then those fraudsters, once they get your picture and IDs, will definitely misuse them for something illegal.

For example, they may apply for a credit card on your name. All banks require you to provide your ID and address proof (known as KYC – Know Your Customer). So, using your documents these scammers can do many financial frauds by your name.

But there are clients and job providers who will need your documents. For example, when I recruit writers online, I prefer to know my freelancer and make sure it’s a real person. Also, I need their photos and social media account IDs so that I can credit them with their work on my website.

So, you will have to judge and act accordingly. Do some background check. Research about the person, their company, search your client’s LinkedIn and Facebook page. See if they have given their phone numbers and whether they work.

One thing that you can do is to put a line on your ID using any picture editing program like Paint or Photoshop. Or you may write a line on a photocopy of your IDs and then scan them. You may write the purpose of providing the IDs in a single line, e.g. “For proving my identity to XYZ company”. Make sure you write it across your ID, so that no one can crop it out.

Money Laundering

How money-laundering gets incorporated in online jobs?

Client will hire you for an easy job (that’s what they’ll say). So, someone will send money to your PayPal for whatever reason. You’ll withdraw it from your PayPal to your local bank account and then send the money back to them through Western Union.

They’ll tell you, that you’ll get some part of this money (say 10%). If they sent you $1,000, you will get $100 per transaction. That’s money laundering. That $1,000 probably came from an illegal method.

Do you want to get involved in illegal works? Obviously, no.

Illegal Ad Pyramid Scheme

Some fraudsters may try to rope you in their illegal work. For example, they may run an ad saying that you will get $1000 job assignment if you pay them $100. Once you pay them, they may ask you to post similar ads and trap others to get your $1000.

This is kind of an illegal online ad pyramid scheme. Never fall in such trap and if you have, do report them to the police.

What actions can I take to avoid and deal with online job scams?

Be cautious and do background research

You need to be cautious, use your common sense and do some background research before you apply somewhere for online job or work from home gig.

It’s essential even if the work is listed on some reputed sites like freelancer, upwork, naukari.com etc. These sites cannot screen all those who are listing jobs on their sites. You will have to screen them yourselves.

Remember! scamming happens after application, when you talk to them directly, not in actual job posting.

Ignore the threats

There also have been cases where people are given simple jobs, like typing. Once they submit their work they are not paid. Even worse, in some cases they are told that their work is of low quality or they have missed deadline etc. Then they ask such freelancers to pay money to them, failing which law suits will be filed against them. They even send fake court notices to mobile phones and e-mail. Never fall in such a trap. Just ignore them.

There threats are also as fake as the jobs they post.

Report and Create Awareness

Last but not the least, if you find someone doing any fraud, do report him/her. Let people know about these websites in various forums. You may even file an online police report for the same.

Winding Up

If you have had such a bad experience, do let us know too in the comment section below. We may add it to this article, so that others may also take some learning from it.

Even if you have had such a bad experience, don’t give up. Though there are scams, there are much more legitimate work from home opportunities out there. So, keep exploring.

Prefer established, reputed companies that do not ask you for money or ask you to work for free for a long time. A person providing a genuine job will definitely like to meet you or talk to you over phone and discuss the job requirements and your skills.

Just be aware and cautious. Always double check. When it comes to online jobs, ignorance is not a bliss! Share your experiences and learn from others.