Job Offer Scams and How to Vet an Employer
Launch library · evergreen read
A job offer arrives with little or no real interview process, an unusually high salary attached to genuinely simple tasks, and instructions to start immediately by purchasing equipment or software with your own money first. The unusual speed and ease of it all are meant to feel like sudden good fortune rather than the warning sign they actually represent.
Some fake roles ask brand new starters to receive money into their own personal bank account and then forward it on elsewhere, a pattern that can unknowingly involve someone in moving funds connected to entirely separate scams without them ever realising it. Others simply collect personal and banking details under the reasonable-sounding guise of setting up payroll for a new employee.
Before formally accepting any role, take time to research the company's actual website, look for genuine employee reviews from independent sources, and stay cautious of interviews conducted entirely over text chat with absolutely no verifiable phone or video contact from a real, identifiable person at the organisation itself.
A legitimate employer never asks a brand new hire to pay for their own onboarding, training kit or equipment upfront out of pocket. If money is genuinely meant to flow anywhere at all during a job offer process, it should always be moving from the employer toward you, never the other way around.