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Beware of Job Offer Scams
Identifying work-from-home scams can be tricky, especially as they often appear alongside legitimate opportunities on popular job-search websites. And if you’re a retiree looking to supplement your Social Security or, certainly, anyone needing to make ends meet, it can be awfully tempting to follow those leads. Who wouldn’t like to earn big money stuffing envelopes or posting online ads from the comfort of your couch, or get all the tools and training needed to start a lucrative home-based business?
But few of these offers ever lead to actual income. Instead, they’re liable to leave you with a lighter bank account or even heavily in debt.
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says that business and job opportunity scams were among the top 10 scams people reported to the agency in 2022, with a total of $367 million lost — up nearly 76 percent over 2021.
The median loss in those cases was $2,000, among the highest for fraud categories tracked by the FTC.
Typical ploys invite you to get to work stuffing envelopes, processing billing forms for medical offices, filling out online surveys, doing typing or data entry, or assembling crafts. The common thread is that you’ll be asked to pay something up front for supplies, certifications, coaching or client leads — or sent a check to cover such expenses, which turns out to be bogus.
In return you may get a load of useless information, or nothing at all, or a demand that you place more ads to recruit more people into the scheme.
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) issued a warning in April 2022 about a new twist on this con, with supposed job recruiters offering targets an interview if they download a messaging app such as Telegram. After answering a few questions on the app, you get an offer, a contract and a request for your personal data and banking information.
More-involved cons promise to set you up in an online business — again, for a price, which can rapidly escalate into the thousands of dollars as one paid “training program” leads to another.
Other supposed job opportunities actually make you an unwitting money mule, essentially assisting the scammers with their crimes. The BBB says the criminals often will hire people for reshipping scams: They’ll use stolen credit card numbers to order products, then instruct the victims to repackage the goods and send the packages to a new address. “The accomplices who were hired for this fraudulent type of work are never paid,” says the BBB, “and their identities may be used to open bank accounts.”
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