The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns that job fraud scams are on the rise

There has been an alarming rise in job scams across games over the past year. The FTC says reports of job scams have quadrupled each year since 2022 to 20,000 reports at a total cost of $41 million during the first six months of the year.

Job or task scams often involve a scammer asking someone to do a relatively simple online task like liking videos or sorting product images into personalized collections using terms like “product promotion” or “app optimization,” according to the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC). People are promised higher payments for completing a certain amount of collections which may pay small amounts initially but end up costing them more than they pay in the long run.

Scammers will contact people via text messages or calling apps like Whatsapp to offer them an important job. The most common type of these scams usually involve some type of cryptocurrency. The scammer might then ask their target to deposit some money or “charge” their account through an app to start working on new and larger sets of tasks. They may also try to convince their victims by hearing testimonials from fake recipients about how much money they made for completing relatively simple tasks.

The victim will “charge” their accounts with their own money to avoid losing what the app shows they have earned in the hopes that they will receive their deposited money and the fees owed to them. Instead, the money they were paid is not real and any money they deposited to “charge” their accounts will be lost forever.

The FTC recommends ignoring offers from unknown text messages or WhatsApp messages and never paying anyone with the promise of receiving payment at a later time or date. The committee also recommends staying away from any job offers that include a rating or like for things online, a practice the FTC says is “illegal and would not be done by any honest company.”