Job and employment scams
Big income—guaranteed? Unlikely!How the scam works
Job and employment scams involve offers to work from home or
set up and invest in a ‘business opportunity’. Scammers promise a
job, high salary or large investment return following initial upfront
payments. These payments may be for a ‘business plan’, training
course, software, uniforms, security clearance, taxes or fees. If you
pay the fee you may not receive anything or not what you expected
or were promised.
Some job offers may be a cover for illegal money laundering
activities, where you are asked to act as an ‘accounts manager’ or
‘personal assistant’, receive payments into your bank account for a
commission, and then pass the money on to a foreign company.
Job scams are often promoted through spam email or
advertisements in well-known classifieds and on job seeker
websites—even government job seeker websites.
A big danger with these job scams is that you can be asked for a
lot of personal details that you should not provide including your
tax file number and copies of your passport or driver’s licence.
This information could be used later for identity theft.