Unmasking a Work at Home Scam: My Firsthand Experience

I have written here often enough about work at home scams. Recently I had one try to contact me. I didn’t fall for it, of course, but I had a little fun confirming that this amazing job offer was in fact the scam I knew it to be. I’m sharing this story of unmasking a work at home scam so that you can see how tempting scammers try to be. There will be screenshots.

I knew from the moment I opened the email that I was going to have some fun with this. It’s not often I get such a perfect example of a scam. It was well tailored to my career interests in remote jobs working for someone else. They claimed that I had applied on Indeed. That is one of the problems with online job hunting – you and the scammers are in the same places, and they know what you want. They can look perfectly legitimate at first glance. But then…

The Work at Home Scam Email Unmasked

I knew from the moment I opened this email that the job was not real. I’ll quote it here, with the company name and other info redacted. Take a moment and see if you can figure out what’s wrong:

Hello Stephanie

We acknowledged the receipt of your application via Our Indeed job board and we want you to know that your service is required. We feel that your qualifications are in line with being a suitable applicant for the available Content Creator job. I have included a concise description of this position in the attachment below. 

Job ID: Content Creator

Company:  *********
Company Website: *********

Functional Area: Creatives.
Wage: $85./hr.
Type: Full-Time Job.
Location: USA (can be telecommuted)

Note: Following our newest online screening method introduced by the Better Business Bureau considering the Covid-19 pandemic, You are required to sign up for “MICROSOFT TEAMS” business messenger on your Mobile Phone or Personal Computer. This is also our official secure channel for online business interview conduct so visit Microsoft teams website on any browser to sign up. Proceed immediately to set up and then add your interview manager up on MICROSOFT TEAMS business messenger with

Email:**********************  Name: ********* ******. I will be your interviewer and I will also provide you with a thorough description of the open positions and their duties attached to this email. If you run into difficulties setting up your account with Microsoft teams, send me a reply and I will provide you with needed assistance.

Thank you, and best of luck with your interview!
******** Talent Acquisition Team

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:
This is a transmission of ********* and may contain information that is confidential and proprietary. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, copying or distribution, or use of the contents of this message is expressly prohibited.

CAUTION:
Internet and e-mail communications are ********* reserves the right to retrieve and read any message created, sent, and received. reserves the right to monitor messages by authorized  Associates at any time without any further consent, Your reference code is (EHR-109), this will serve as your identification number throughout the online hiring process.

Best Regards,

******** *******
*********

Talent Acquisition Team

There was also a PDF attachment. I have redacted a lot of irrelevant information, as this scam was imitating a legitimate company, and I do not want their name dragged through the mud by this. It’s not their fault. If the email wasn’t enough to tell you what was wrong, these might do it.

Do you see it now? I hope so, but let’s review the signs anyhow.

The Anatomy of a Work at Home Scam Email

The first thing I noticed was the request to use Microsoft Teams… excuse me… MICROSOFT TEAMS. I’ve used Teams before on legitimate interviews, but it can be a sign of a scam as well, especially in all caps like that. Also, most people don’t capitalize mobile phone or personal computer. The pay rate was a clue as well. It was rather on the high side. Also, the email address used was similar but not identical to the real company’s domain. Add in some grammatical errors, and I knew what I had.

Blog post inspiration, for those who are wondering. That’s what I had.

The point where they said my service was required also caught my attention. Seriously, who would say that to a job applicant??? And of course, when I’ve had legitimate remote job interviews, they’ve discussed a time with me and then sent a link to join them in the online meeting.

I use Gmail, which scans attachments, so I felt comfortable opening it. Opening attachments can be a risk, so I rarely do so. But this time I wanted to see what more they had to say. It was gold, pure gold, at least when you’re looking for a scam to mock.

I particularly loved the equipment section. Who wouldn’t love an employer who provided you with all this?

Ϡ iMac 2021 24” (M1 Chip Processor)
Ϡ MacBook Pro 16” Core i7
Ϡ Company branded HP Color Laser-Jet Pro
Ϡ Jabra Engage 65 Mono Wireless Headset System
Ϡ Fellowes Power-shred MS-450Cs
Bundled Software List:
Ϡ Virtual Presence 2.0 Video Conferencing Pro
Ϡ Adobe photoshop, light room, final cut pro, Norton
Ghost v18.0 & Office 365 Home Premium

I mean, an iMac and a MacBook Pro! Sounds great!

But this also leads to the exact point where the scam would hit anyone who fell for it. Check this part out:

Upon hire, you will start with pre-training which is an integral part of your startup period where you’ll complete various task(s) assigned by your team leader and complete all customary steps to have your home office set up and get you started. To compensate for your time and effort on these tasks you will be rewarded with a sign up bonus which comes included in your start up funding.
A thorough background check will be completed before your supervisor assists you in applying for your start up funding from finance. Once the application is approved, you will receive your start up funding which is to be used to procure your working equipment and software suites pack to get your home office set up and so you proceed to training immediately. You will be receiving your shipment via FedEx transit and following this our authorized vendor’s installers will connect with you over the phone to arrange a convenient time with you for them to come over to set up your workstation on the next business day from the day you receive your shipment and they’ll provide you with any technical assistance you might need with the use and management of any of the equipment installed and setup for you.

If you aren’t familiar with this type of scam, it’s called a fake check scam. It’s one of the classics.

They send you a check. You deposit it and buy the equipment from their vendor. Not only do you never receive the equipment, but the check bounces and you’re on the hook for the entire amount. The scammer has their money because you paid the vendor, but you’re out however much you paid. The check bounce can take weeks to months, so you may not even realize what happened until it is much too late.

That’s why they offer such a wonderful home office setup. It allows them to send you a bigger check, and they get all that money from you. Some will even have you send any excess back to them, so you lose even more money. And don’t forget the fees your bank will charge for all this. All those awful, awful fees. It’s a nightmare.

Sometimes your bank account will even be closed as a result of falling for this kind of scam. It makes you look like a bad risk to your bank, so they don’t want you as a customer anymore.

If you want to learn more about this, the FTC has a great resource about the fake check scam and what you should do if you fall for one.

And of course, their direct deposit form is a risk as well. It could expose you to further fraud.

There are a few other points I could make from the PDF, but these are sufficient to make the fraud obvious. You can work at unmasking a work at home scam yourself if you want to give it a go.

Doing Your Due Diligence

Now, I want to make it clear that I checked very carefully that this was a scam before writing all of this. That’s because I would hate to post this and be wrong. This kind of due diligence can save you from work at home scams. All I had to do was find the real company and an appropriate person to contact about it.

Which I did.

Unsurprisingly, the company was quick to confirm that it was a scam. They were pleased that I had taken the time to contact them and asked that I please report the scam appropriately. Which I also did. For reference, in the United States, that’s:

• FBI – Internet Crime Complaint Center (C3) –  https://www.ic3.gov/  
• Federal Trade Commission –  https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/  
• Your state’s attorney general’s office consumer protection division.

Don’t bother with places like the Better Business Bureau. They’re irrelevant for scams in particular. After all, it’s not this particular business running a scam – it’s someone pretending to be them. If you have a problem with a business in your state, you’re better off going to the attorney general’s office consumer protection division, rather than contacting the BBB.

For remote work job offers, there are several items you can check, as I did above. Domain name, email address, job description, starting salary, grammar… these things can give solid hints about whether or not the job is legitimate.

You can also ask friends or family members what they think, especially if you aren’t sure that you’re understanding the job offer completely. Someone who doesn’t stand to gain from the opportunity may see more clearly than you do. Take your time; few legitimate job offers are that urgent, especially in the first contact before any interviews. Scams, on the other hand, are almost always urgent, so they can get you before you have time to think.

Staying Vigilant in the Digital Workplace

The increased demand for remote work that Covid-19 created helped increase the sheer volume of work at home scams out there. Scammers are quick to spot a need they can exploit. Whenever lots of people are out of work, more scams pop up.

That’s why I decided to unmask this work at home scam in detail. Hopefully, it is helpful to see exactly what these scams look like.

As you seek remote work opportunities, be alert to the risks. Any job opportunity that sounds too good to be true probably is. Scammers know that greed and desperation are their friends.

I would love for my readers to share their experiences with unmasking a work at home scam, whether they fell for it or not. The more we help each other learn, the more other people will have a chance to avoid being scammed. I generally suggest avoiding naming names unless it is a company that is consistently scamming job seekers. A situation such as the one in the email I received, I don’t think it’s fair to the company whose name was abused to include them in a discussion like this. Naming and shaming only works when it’s about the people at fault.