Head over to r/Scams and spend the next few days just reading through the posts and responses. That will educate you on a lot of the scams out there.

Some things to keep in mind:

Unless you have significant experience in your field, the chances of anyone reaching out to you about a job is very low. Anyone texting you saying they've "seen your resume" or "your resume has come to their attention" is trying to scam you.

Remote is just a location. The job I do remotely is the exact same job I did in the office. What skills do you have that would be relevant to a 9-5 Monday - Friday office job? Those are the kinds of remote jobs you should be applying to. Scammers prey on the fact that people just want "remote" and aren't thinking through their obvious scam offers.

If you don't have a lot of relevant skills, all you're going to find are low pay, high stress, high turnover contact center / customer service jobs.

And if it sounds too good to be true...you're getting scammed.

Big flags:

If they offer wages way more than the market average. Like $35 per hour for Data Entry.

Also scammers use real company names for scams. To verify, just call the company and talk to HR or person hiring.

If they do an interview on anything but Teams or Zoom. It's a scam. If they do an interview not on video, it's a scam.

Also research the company via search engines or domain lookup. If you see any scam reporting or very new websites, it's a scam. If you get an email address with a weird domain (like "name @ domain. Rgz). I've got weird domain names like that. It's a fake domain and a scam.

Hope this helps.

If they ever ask you to pay money to them at any stage of the interview, run away. But your best bet would be applying directly on company websites after seeing their postings on legit remote job sites.

Jobs with titles like "Appointment setter" - those are just cold-calling sales jobs. Also "High ticket sales" obviously. There will be no wage/salary/benefits/equipment/leads. There was one posted last night in r/remotework promising, like all of them, the potential for $5-$7K per month. They posted a screenshot in which they forgot to remove their URL which was "something.ng-fake-cash-app".

Here on reddit "DM me" "Send me a message" "Leave a comment"- means it's so shady they can't post it here or it will get called out, or it's an mlm and 10 redditors who can use Google will immediately link to sites showing it's a scam. If they won't post the company name, salary info, or website, it's probably a scam.

Data entry or VA jobs - 99.9% scams.

Jobs that claim to need to do a quick credit check as part of their background check - just go to xyzwebsite.com and send us your credit report - that website is going to steal your credit card info.

Jobs that say they will send you a check to purchase a list of equipment - just stop communicating.

Thank you for your post!

I’ve been getting a lot of messages wanting to interview me over teams.

You confirmed my suspicions that they are scams. Thanks!!

Why is having two first names a red flag?

I have two first names and never scammed anyone :(

There are a lot of these scams around, the ones that have you push buttons make you think you're boosting a products reputation then asking you for a couple of bucks because you're gonna get more…

It normally involves WhatsApp, some sort of cryptocurrency transfer and Cash app

I wish there was a way to flip the check to buy equipment onto them somehow. Get the money without doing anything and then getting in trouble for fraud.

What happens if you take those checks to the bank and tell them it's suspected fraud. Not to cash it obviously, instead to get an investigation going without someone getting squeezed in the middle.

Scamming people looking for remote work is a growth industry.

Become a regular reader on r/Scams if you're looking for remote work, and especially if you're looking for entry-level remote work. Learn how to spot the common scam signs and the newest scams. Look for "job," "task," and "fake check" on r/Scams to learn how they work .

1. If they don’t do video interviews via teams/zoom/google meet/etc. No legitimate company is going to hire you after just texting back and forth.
2. If they use common scammer sayings. “Do the needful”, “kindly” etc.
3. If I have to buy/supply my own equipment, even if they’re going to reimburse me.
4. If I have to front any costs (exception here might be if I’m traveling for interview/onboarding, but we would have a discussion about that.)

The first thing to remember is if its too good to be true, then its probably a scam. If they ask for money its a scam.

Subscribe to r/Scams and spend the next few days just reading the posts. That will get you familiar with a lot of the scams currently happening.

This sounds bad but I’ll say it anyways. I’ll check the company out on LinkedIn and review all their employees. If all of them are Indian I won’t bother applying because they’re usually scams

1. No contract, no information about the company

2. Easy task (like a post, put a review on a youtube video...) for 15$ ! Or they want to give you 10k$/month just for something that can be done by a robot or IA

3. You dont find the job post on their personal website/social media

4. They ask for your personal info really fast

Legit Platforms : Linkedin RemoteOK but everyone can post a fake/scam job.

I always check out the company on Glassdoor and Indeed. If the rating is less than 3.5 stars, pass.

Recommend FlexJobs but in the same category also say “never pay to get a job.” Interesting.

What about when job applications are rewriting our full address rather than just the city we live in?

Dipshits spamming about browser extensions are also exploding in 2025

So you used an AI prompt to write your post about a possibly AI generated Chrome extension that tracks PII?

No thanks, bro.

There is a difference between scam job postings and fake/ghost job postings. I feel like 3rd party recruiter/agency jobs can look like scams because of how 3rd party recruiters work and what their goals are

If they try to push you to use a banking app (for any reason), it's a scam.

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See: r/scams

If they mention anything to do with WhatsApp, Telegram, any of those messaging apps it’s a scam. Those apps are “encrypted” so they can’t send and receive sensitive information which scammers are more than likely to use versus something like Gmail or a company email domain.

If the job description lists “hiring immediately” or “up to x amount of dollars a week.” Usually that’s a commission based scam job. They want people to be lured in at the thought of this get rich quick scheme. A more legit job posting won’t tell you how much you’ll make a week, usually going by hourly or salaried wage. I could be wrong for some cases tho.

It also helps to google company names and or their location. If you see anything from the BBB, scam complaint forums, Reddit, etc anything that warns you of possible bad behavior drop all communication immediately. A good indicator is if you google a company name and on the first page of google is numerous SCAM BEWARE headlines. People do not stay quiet about scams lol.

The reason I’m doubting and having second thoughts after “being hired” is because I’ve not talked to a live person at all from interview to the hiring process. They were emailing me but after signing the offer letter they told me to use telegram to communicate. On top of that what sounded shady to me was that they are going to send me a check which I’m suppose to deposit in my account and then order all the supplies and equipment I need to do the job like a laptop, printer etc. I’m getting really concerned about this and not sure what to do while I wait for that check and what to do after I receive the check. Please help!

Use LinkedIn, remote.co, weworkremotely, remote.io

Definitely a scam, they'll send you a check that will eventually bounce and you'll end up stuck having sent them money already. Listen to your gut and immediately block and report them!

It's a scam. I told one straight up to eat a dick. 👍

100% a scam. They send you the check, you cash it, then you send money via Zelle, etc. to a company they control to purchase the equipment. You never get the equipment and the bank finds the check has insufficient funds/fraudulent, etc. Meanwhile they have the cash and you now have a negative balance. Classic fraud. Also, you've already given them your ID, so you need to file a police report and obtain a new ID #, and lock your credit reports- you've been the victim of identity theft.

A good “who is” search of a companies website can tell you a lot. If the company totes “we’ve been around for 25 years” and the website domain was registered in January of this year, you can know it’s BS. Also a reverse image search of the “top executives” can tell you a lot when I leads back to a stock photo.

Investigation is your best friend in these situations

(https://lookup.icann.org/en)

Sorry if this is annoying, but I noticed that your FlexJobs link actually links to Teal.

Yeah, it’s annoying as hell. In my job search, my email inbox has become overwhelmed with these scam offers for an interview. When I’m incredibly bored, I’ll log onto telegram/microsoft teams/whatever platform they’re using and fuck with the scammers, it’s kinda fun

I just think it's ridiculous that people are posting 100% fake jobs and simply wasting my time. My time is valuable!

If you are looking for a reputable remote job, you might want to try this site: www.flexjobs.com.

It was suggested to me by a career counselor. It is subscription, but the cost is reasonable ($10/month) and the jobs are vetted.

Yes common scam. Play them out - there are some videos online where the scammer gets increasingly upset when the applicant refuses to send back his “money”. Tell them you bought the equipment on Amazon or eBay rather than his “vendor”

Don't touch that money call them or go to the bank and let them know that you have been scammed and that check has something going on with it