FBI Warns of Scammers Defrauding Individuals via Fake Work-From-Home Jobs

• The FBI warns of scammers promoting easy remote jobs online to defraud potential victims in the US.
• Work offers are spread via unsolicited communication and appear to come from legitimate businesses.
• Their common denominator is the requirement of making cryptocurrency payments to the scammer first.

The FBI issued a warning about scammers promoting fake work-from-home jobs, which typically involve a relatively simple task to lure a large number of potential victims. The scammers pose as legitimate businesses, such as recruiting agencies, and usually contact victims via an unsolicited call or message that invites them to rate restaurants or repeatedly click a button in exchange for attractive remuneration.

The catch is the fake work offer has a confusing payment process that involves making cryptocurrency payments motivated by various suspicious things, such as earning more money or "unlocking" work. Moreover, the job description often uses the term "optimization" and does not require any references or experience.

Once the scammers receive the payment, the conversation leads to the perpetrator asking victims to click on a URL that directs to a fake page that makes victims believe they are earning money when none of it is actually withdrawable.

The FBI recommends caution regarding unsolicited job offer messages. You should not click on any links, download files, or open attachments in these messages, nor make payments to these alleged employers. Needless to say, do not share financial or personally identifiable information with suspicious people who pretend to represent real companies.

In addition to protecting yourself against scams, you can report fraudulent or suspicious activities to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

This is just one of the many examples of scams happening online. Numerous unsolicited messages, pretending to represent LinkedIn and others, are received by targets over apps such as WhatsApp in various countries around the world.

Recently, scams involving crypto are on the rise, propagating via Telegram, Twitter, and more. Last week, Microsoft India’s account on X was hijacked by threat actors pretending to be a well-known stock trader to promote crypto scam posts.