As the trend towards working remotely from home continues to grow, so do the opportunities. Unfortunately, work from home scams are also on the rise.
To protect your time, money and sanity, here’s ten ways to know if you may be dealing with an online job scam.
Making Sure Your Job Offer Is Legit
1. It sounds too good to be true. A scammer very often will make their fake offer sound absolutely fantastic. They’re hoping to excite you enough to let your guard down so they can pull you deeper into their deception.
2. You get an unsolicited job offer in an email. A sure sign of a job scam is getting a job offer from a person or company out of the blue. Legit businesses won’t waste time making an employment offer to someone who has not expressed interest in the job.
3. You get an email from someone with a sketchy email address. Be on the lookout for Gmail addresses or other addresses that are not related to the company or the job offer in some way. Legit companies normally use branded email addresses.
4. The company has a weak online presence. A quick search on Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook can give you a good idea if the person or company contacting you is real.
5. Their initial email contains an attachment. There’s really no reason to attach anything to the first email sent to you. If you get an unsolicited email job offer (see #2 above) and it has an attachment, don’t waste your time responding.
6. Misspelled words. I personally make an allowance for ONE misspelled word found in a job offer. Mistakes happen even in legitimate communication. However, job scams often contain several misspelled words and poor grammar because they originate in foreign countries.
7. Vague responses to your questions. You are probably dealing with a scam job offer if you ask direct questions relevant to a job offer you receive and get fuzzy answers. Also beware if the “employer” stalls and promises to answer your reasonable questions at a later date.
8. Requesting sensitive personal data too soon. Your resume or CV should be all that is required for a job interview process. Only provide personal information beyond your address and phone number after you’ve received an actual job offer from a real employer.
9. Requesting money from you up-front. Any request for you to send money for training or equipment or such other things should be a big red flag.
10. Trust your gut and common sense. If you get a bad feeling about a job offer or it just sounds way too good to be true, 99 times out of 100, your instincts will be right.
If you apply these filters to any suspicious job offers you receive, you should avoid any work at home scams that come your way.
