Looking For A Job? Watch Out For Scammers

September is one of the busiest months for job hunting—it’s also a peak season for recruitment scams, according to cybersecurity experts at NordVPN. As workers who quit their jobs over the summer reenter the job market and students search for work as the new academic year begins, scammers have a larger pool of potential victims.

Looking for a job already requires sharing a surprising amount of personal information like your name, address and phone number. Eventually, a legitimate employer may need your Social Security number, banking information, and other sensitive data. Scammers know that, too.

That’s part of what makes job scams particularly effective. A request for personal information that would immediately raise a red flag in almost any other context can seem perfectly normal when it appears to come from someone offering you a job.

“Job seekers are in a vulnerable position by default. They expect to share personal information with strangers, respond quickly, and follow instructions,” says Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN.

And business is booming. According to the Federal Trade Commission, reports of job and employment agency scams nearly tripled between 2020 and 2024. The money lost grew even faster: consumers reported losing $501 million to those scams in 2024, up from $90 million in 2020.

How Job Scams Work

Some job scams start with an unsolicited email, text, or message from a supposed recruiter. Others appear as job listings on legitimate employment websites or social media platforms. Scammers may impersonate real companies—and sometimes real people who work for those companies—to make an offer seem legitimate.

Earlier this year, NordVPN’s Threat Intelligence team identified a phishing campaign that impersonated companies including Meta, Disney, Coca-Cola, and Spotify. The scheme used fake job-listing portals that mimicked the companies they impersonated, ultimately directing victims to a page designed to steal their information.

Other scams, such as so-called “task scams,” typically begin with an unexpected text message offering unusually high pay for simple online tasks, such as liking videos, rating businesses, or “boosting” products. These schemes have exploded in popularity. The FTC estimated that reports of task scams jumped from about 5,000 in all of 2023 to about 20,000 in the first half of 2024 alone. By then, task scams accounted for nearly 40% of reported job scams. Victims may watch supposed earnings accumulate on a website or app, only to be told they must send money—often via cryptocurrency—to unlock their earnings or advance to the next level. Reported cryptocurrency losses connected to job scams reached about $41 million in the first half of 2024 alone, nearly double the amount reported for all of 2023.

In fake-check scams, a supposed employer may hire you for a remote position and send you a check to buy a computer or other home-office equipment. You deposit the check and follow the employer’s instructions to buy equipment or send money elsewhere. Later, the check turns out to be fake. When the fraud is discovered, the bank can reverse the deposit, leaving you responsible for the money you spent or transferred.

Work-from-home schemes can also include reshipping merchandise, virtual assistant jobs, or purported business opportunities. The details vary, but the warning signs are similar and involve unusually high pay for little work or experience, demands for upfront payments, and requests to move money on behalf of the supposed employer.

Money May Not Be The Most Valuable Thing Thieves Steal

Losing money to a job scam can be devastating. But money isn’t the only thing scammers are after—your identity may be even more valuable.

Think about the information that typically changes hands when you get a real job. An employer needs enough information to establish your identity, report your wages, withhold taxes, and pay you. That can include your legal name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, bank account information, and identity documents. For an identity thief, it’s a remarkably useful collection of data.

Even information that doesn’t seem particularly sensitive can be valuable. LinkedIn accounts, for example, can contain phone numbers, personal and work email addresses, employment histories, professional connections, and messages. NordVPN reports that stolen LinkedIn accounts command relatively high prices on dark web marketplaces. A compromised professional account can also help a scammer impersonate you and target your colleagues, clients, and other contacts.

When Identity Theft Becomes A Tax Problem

Identity theft doesn’t always end with a compromised account or a bounced check—it can lead to a tax problem.

Tax-related identity theft occurs when someone uses your stolen personal information, including your Social Security number, to file a fraudulent tax return—often to claim a refund before you file your own return. You may not discover the theft until you try to file electronically, and the IRS rejects your return. In other cases, the first clue may be an unexpected IRS notice or other correspondence about a return you didn’t file.

An identity thief can also use someone else’s Social Security number to get a job. The IRS calls this employment-related identity theft. You might discover the problem when you receive a Form W-2 or Form 1099 from an employer you don’t recognize, or when wages or Social Security earnings that don’t belong to you appear. In some cases, the IRS might contact you because information reported under your Social Security number doesn’t match what’s reported on your tax return.

If you receive a Form W-2 from an unknown employer, don’t report those wages on your tax return—or amend a return you’ve already filed to add them—simply because the form was issued in your name. Contact the Social Security Administration to correct wages improperly reported under your Social Security number.

An unexpected Form 1099 can also be a sign that someone has used your identity, but the fix is different. Don’t report the income on your tax return, but to avoid a mismatch, contact the business or payer that issued the form and ask them to correct the records.

If you receive a letter, notice, or fax from the IRS related to suspected identity theft, follow the instructions in that correspondence immediately. Depending on the circumstances, you may also need to file Form 14039, Identity Theft Affidavit.

How To Spot A Job Scam

A scam can look surprisingly professional. However, there are some warning signs:

• Be suspicious of jobs that offer very high pay for very little work or experience.
• Watch for recruiters who pressure you to make immediate decisions, conduct the entire hiring process via text or chat, or contact you from an email address that doesn’t match the company’s official domain.
• Be wary of any job that requires you to pay money. Legitimate employers generally don’t charge applicants an application fee, demand payment for mandatory training, or ask them to send cryptocurrency or gift cards.
• A legitimate employer should not send you a check and instruct you to deposit it and return some of the money, transfer money to someone else, or buy gift cards.

Protect Yourself During A Job Search

You don’t have to refuse to provide personal information to every prospective employer. Employers need information about applicants, and once you’re hired, they’ll need even more.

The key is to be strategic. Before handing over sensitive information, verify that the company exists, the position is real, and the person contacting you actually works there. Don’t rely solely on links or phone numbers provided by the recruiter—find the company’s official website and check its careers page.

Be especially cautious about providing your personal information or copies of other identity documents early in the hiring process. A recruiter who claims to need your Social Security number before you’ve even interviewed should raise a red flag. So should an employer who seems much more interested in getting your financial information than in determining whether you can actually do the job.

What If You’ve Already Been Scammed?

Act quickly. If you sent money to a scammer, contact the bank, credit card company, payment app, wire-transfer service, gift-card issuer, or cryptocurrency platform you used. Report the fraud and ask whether the transaction can be stopped or reversed.

Job scams can also be reported to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

If you believe your tax information has been stolen or used in a tax scam, the IRS provides a reporting page for tax fraud, scams, illegal activity, and stolen tax information.

A Final Note

Job seekers are expected to put their best foot forward. Scammers do the same. They can build convincing websites, copy corporate branding, impersonate real recruiters, conduct fake interviews, and send official-looking employment documents. Because legitimate hiring requires sharing personal information, a scammer doesn’t necessarily have to make an unusual request. That’s what makes these schemes so dangerous.

So when you’re looking for a job, pay attention not just to where your money is going, but also to where your information is going. When in doubt, assume it’s a scam.