Americans were scammed out of $68 million due to fake business and job opportunities in the first quarter of 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission, as bad actors continue to leverage pandemic stress and the hot job market to con job-seekers out of money and their personal financial information.
Employment-related scams have been a persistent problem but rose in 2020 as criminals took advantage of people who lost work due to Covid, says Rhonda Perkins, an attorney and chief of staff for the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices. In the first quarter of 2022, people reported more than 20,700 incidents of business and job opportunity scams, with nearly a third of those resulting in a financial loss.
And the Internal Revenue Service this week urged the public to be cautious of ongoing tax scams during the pandemic, including scammers who post fake job ads to social media.
Scams appear in a lot of different ways, but there’s one clear red flag that makes one easy to spot: When an employer finds a way to ask you for money.
Here are some of the most common types of employment scams to be aware of.
Fake job postings
Job scams take a variety of forms: Sometimes, scammers will contact victims directly by phone call, text or email. Other times, they’ll imitate a reputable employer and create a fake website or post fake listings on job-search sites.
The biggest way scammers try to defraud victims is by posing as part of a staffing or temp agency, then requiring job-seekers pay…
