21 Fake Jobs

Trying to find a job these days can be really tough, so most people turn to the power of the internet to help, using recruitment firms, job post boards and recruitment search engines. Applying for a job involves parting with quite a detailed amount of personal information. The criminals know this and so send out spam job emails or set up fake recruitment websites in order to get you to give them personal information which can then be used in phishing scams.

Worse still are the fake ‘work from home’ jobs which effectively just get you to launder money for the criminals. You typically get a 10% brokerage fee, and it is advertised as a professional financial service opportunity. You would be committing a crime and as ignorance of the law is not a defence, it could land you in quite a lot of trouble. Some variants of this scam get you to do some form of online training to make them appear more credible. Here is a typical fake job email:

From Mr. K. Barnett (barnett.job@gmail.com)

Greetings Nick Ioannou,

We got your resume at jobsite.co.uk. Our Company is looking for dynamic candidates to join the team of FS Agent which is accessible once. Our Enterprise is looking for self-supporting agents who will introduce our Company in different regions. This is an occasional opportunity to obtain a unique experience of working as a part of a professional group, in addition to servicing large clients and creating strong business partnerships. This is a remote position; all assignments and documentation are provided through a web panel at our corporate server, which you will be connecting to over the Internet, from your computer. No particular software or hardware is required. This job does NOT expect any sales, marketing or cold calling.

Minimum Requirements: 

We also have a special partnership proposal for business owners which grant you the access to large corporate agreements with increased bonuses. Interested candidates may submit an e-mail of interest with a full name and contact number to this e-mail address. Applicants available to start immediately will have the privilege and will be provided with a sign-on bonus.

With regards,

Mr. K. Barnett

HR Manager

Remember, any job advert that says that you need a current bank account to process payments is probably a money laundering scam. In fact, any job posting that requires you give your bank details in order to just apply for the position is a scam. There are also a lot of ‘work from home’ scams that require you to purchase some type of start-up kit, franchise fee, training pack or registration fee. The whole scam revolves around getting you to pay this initial starting fee and you get little in return. Some let you recover your money by reselling the starting pack; effectively making you part of a pyramid scheme.

Here’s another spam email I received for a ‘Key Account Manager’ position. I’ve left in the typos!

Hello, We have an excellent opportunity for an apprentice applicant to join a rapidly expanding company.

An at home Key Account Manager Position is a great opportunity for stay at home parents 

or anyone who wants to work in the comfort of their own home. 

This is a part time job / flexible hrs for European citizens only,This is in view of our not having a branch office presently in Europe, also becouse of paypal and ebay policies wich is prohibit to work directly with residents of some countries.

Requirements: computer with Internet access, valid email address, good typing skills. 

If you fit the above description and meet the requirements, please apply to this ad stating your location.

You will be processing orders from your computer. How much you earn is up to you. 

The average is in the region of 750-1000 GBP per week, depending on whether you work full or part time.

Region: United Kingdom only.

If you would like more information, please contact us stating where you are located and our job reference number - 11398-337/0HR. 

Please only SERIOUS applicants.

If you are interested, please reply to: Selma@uk-google.com

Some scams are trying to trick you into cashing bogus checks and transferring the balance (minus your commission) to specified accounts via a money transfer service. It’s typically dressed up as a ‘store evaluation’ role, like this one below from unitedsurveyinc@aol.com

We have a Store Evaluation assignment at Walmart, Walgreens and CVS and you will be paid $200 per assignment. Get back to me if you are interested in participating. Note that the assignment can be done after work or during your break time.

Sincerely,

David Coleman

Email secured by Check Point

Sometimes fake recruitment agents may contact you via a variety of methods including a telephone call, SMS text message, WhatsApp message, Telegram, Facebook Messager, etc. Someone else then follows up supposedly from the company the recruitment agent is working on behalf of. The was the message I recently received

I'm Megan, You were referred to me by the recruiting department to refer you to a job, 

In your conversation with the recruiter, you initially asked for information to be sent to you via email. We apologise that we didn't make this clear at the outset, but it's more convenient to send the details here.

I work with Yum Brands and I'm your guide, I'm responsible for introducing you to the opportunity and giving you a 15 minute training session to familiarise you with the job.

The scammers pretend to be companies that own big name brands, in this case Yum, who own KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. In the next message they included a marketing animation to appear genuine.

First of all, let me introduce you to the company platform to help you better understand our role. Our company, Yum! Brand, specializes in catering and gastronomy.

This position is available full-time or part-time. We support restaurateurs who want to partner with Yum! brands to promote their dishes. This partnership increases the visibility of Yum! brands and simplifies their entry into the industry.

This job is very simple. Your job is to evaluate lesser-known foods from around the world. We need to provide real data to get good reviews, which will help improve global sales, brand reputation and visibility of these foods.

So far all the messages have been to build up trust. The animation was real, and was lifted from the legitimate owners YouTube channel. Scammers can also spend weeks building up trust, never being pushy and polite at all times. It had now been a few days and the follow up message now included some financial figures, all designed to hook you in.

In simple terms, here’s what the job involves:

The role is that of a Product Optimizer. Your task is to appraise and rate dishes for YUM so they can gain better market visibility, improve sales, and ultimately generate more revenue for YUM's franchise partners.

You don’t need to go out into the field—everything is done online. Once you register an account with YUM, I’ll guide you through a 10–20 minute training session to help you understand the basics.

After that, you’ll be assigned 96 tasks per day, which involves rating dishes. You earn a commission based on the value each dish generates after you rate it.

You can withdraw your commission daily, and there are also base salaries paid on specific milestones:

Day 5: £588

Day 7: £588

Day 14: £1,288

Day 30: £2,888

These salary payments are withdrawn on those respective working days.

It takes 50 - 1 hour or less to complete a day's worth of tasks, it depends entirely on the individual. 96 tasks are daily tasks that can be completed between 10am and 11pm, with weekends optional, but if someone decides to work, they are paid at the same rate as on weekdays.

So that’s a claimed £5,352 for an hour a day for a month if all milestones are met, which is a ludicrous amount of money and that’s the point. People start thinking about what they could do with that much additional money coming in each month, instead of thinking why would someone pay me over £250 an hour for some simple tasks. At this point, I asked how do I sign up?

1. click on the link, you will be directed to our homepage 

2. Enter your mobile phone number (e.g. +358 Xxxxx).  

3. Enter the graphic verification code (type the numbers next to it).      

4. Enter the password you chose (for example, 123456).  Repeat the same password 

5. Enter the invitation code: :2HZ5C5

This is the platform's job offer registration link: 

https://www.yumbrandjob.com

Invitation code :2HZ5C5

So, exactly does the scam work? Firstly, tasks are split into stages (or milestones) and in order to release the next stage, you need to pay a deposit into the online task platform. The ability to withdraw funds is typically only available in the early stages to build trust, after which the deposit fees grow and users think they have thousands due to them within the platform, so they don’t see the risks. Secondly, you are asked to share identity documents and bank details as part of the onboarding checks, which could be resold or used for identity theft.

Remember, never pay a company to carry out work for them. For more info on task scams see: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/03/i-spoke-to-a-task-scammer-heres-how-it-went

Also, keep an eye out for the work at home schemes that basically involve getting you to work through a list of online adverts for which the hiring company gets a per click fee. You get a tiny amount per advert and would need to have amazing concentration abilities and stamina, as well as a fast internet connection to reach the levels of potential income quoted in the adverts. The other variant of this is where people are hired to search for and click on competitor’s adverts, eating up their daily AdWords advertising budgets. Often this is advertised as a market research or quality control role, but is basically fraud and is often called ‘click’ fraud. The software you are given to install can also be part of a zombie network, getting your computer and internet connection to work for them whenever it is on. Remember, never sign up to anything involving money from an unsolicited spam email or from a random advert.

Fake jobs have also been used as a way to install trojans and viruses onto job hunter's computers. Recently a group of people appeared in court in London charged with conspiracy to defraud; their scam was based around putting fake job adverts for the famous Harrods store on Gumtree. The victims would then be sent a bogus application pack to fill out, from what appeared to be a legitimate recruitment agency. Some of the victims lost up to £4,700 as their bank accounts were compromised and login details were stolen. A fake job application can also be used to build detailed profiles for identity fraud, asking for a date of birth, mother’s maiden name, etc. and even a secure password for their job seekers profile. Many people use the same password or variations of one so asking someone for a strong secure password is good way of tricking them into giving up information.

If you can, create a new free web-based email address to put on your CV and recruitment job boards. Forward this address to your normal address and if you find you are receiving fake job emails or generic spam, you can close the temporary email account once you have found a job. Make sure that any passwords you use for job searching websites are different from your normal range of passwords, in case the website is a ‘honey pot’ just to collect your details.

Lastly, make sure that your CV does not include your date of birth, when posting onto job websites.

Index or next chapter Online Dating