By Katie Rosseinsky

Copyright independent

Ping! A new message lights up my phone screen. It’s from “Grace”, who purports to be an HR manager working for a major recruitment site. Apparently, she and her colleagues have “reviewed my profile on several online recruitment platforms” and they like what they see, so much so that they’re offering “a flexible, part-time position that you can complete during your spare time”. This mysterious role involves a “very simple task” – but somehow, you can be paid up to £300 a day. If I’m interested, all I need to do is contact the “recruiter” on WhatsApp.

I know, I know. All of this is far too good to be true. And, to my knowledge, I don’t even currently have a profile on any “online recruitment platforms”. This message is just one of a slew of similar scammy approaches I’ve been sent over the past few months. For some reason, about half of them profess to have been sent by a woman called Grace (maybe the scammers reckon it’s a trustworthy sort of name). They tend to be touting “flexible” roles that are unfeasibly well paid: one alleges that “daily earnings range from £500 to £1,000, depending on your availability”, for just “60 to 90 minutes” of work. And they all claim to have originated from legitimate agencies, or big-name social media companies.

Chances are that you’ve received a barrage of almost identical messages recently, too. Job scams have been on the rise in the UK over the past few years: in 2024, Action Fraud, the national reporting service for fraud and cybercrime, received 4,876 reports of this type of hoax, compared with 2,094 back in 2022. Earlier this summer, Lloyds Bank warned customers that it had noticed a 237 per cent rise in “advanced fee” scams since January: this is where victims are lured in with the promise of highly paid, straightforward work, but are asked to pay up front for background checks or training. Victims, the bank said, are losing an average of £1,420, and 53 per cent of cases involve 18- to 34-year-olds (upending the stereotype of the older, less tech-savvy victim).

The con typically starts with a direct approach over text, with the fraudsters sending out a blanket message to a vast number of potential victims. It’s a numbers game, and they only need a few to reply to make the endeavour worthwhile. Fake postings on online job boards and unsolicited emails are also common. “Scammers are constantly adapting their tactics,” says Nika Nepomniashchikh, a threat intelligence analyst at cybersecurity company Group-IB. If you engage with the initial messages or posts, you might be “pressured to pay up front for supposed visa or processing fees”, Nepomniashchikh adds, especially if the “job” allegedly involves relocation or travel.

Sometimes, applicants will be pushed onto branded-looking “task apps”, where they are asked to perform simple activities such as liking posts or leaving comments for money. “Users are then tricked into paying to unlock more tasks, or even to withdraw their so-called earnings,” says Nepomniashchik. In some cases, she adds, fake recruiters go one step further, sending candidates “test assignments” booby-trapped with malware that can infect their device and steal sensitive data.

Even if you don’t get to the point where you’re paying out, details such as your full name, date of birth and address can still be valuable for fraudsters to sell on or use in future scams. “Victims can lose funds, but beyond money, scammers harvest personal data like government identity numbers, passports or bank details,” says Dmitry Anikin, data science expert at cybersecurity company Kaspersky. “This can happen during remote onboarding, leading to identity theft.”

AI is aiding job scams, Nepomniashchikh believes, because cybercriminals can now generate convincing ads, websites and fake recruiter profiles at scale, making these scams “harder to spot and far more targeted”.

Kevin Curran, a professor of cybersecurity at Ulster University and a senior member of professional body the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), reckons that post-Covid economic instability and the boom in remote work have helped fuel the rise, too: it’s now far more common than it was before the pandemic to undergo an entirely digital application and interview process, and these schemes are exploiting that shift. Curran adds that scams like this “can originate anywhere with internet access, but many are linked to countries with weaker cybercrime enforcement”.

If, like me, you’re receiving these texts when you’re already happily employed, it’s easy enough to roll your eyes, delete the message, block the number and move on with your day. But what if you’re on the hunt for something new? Perhaps there are redundancies sweeping your office, you’re a recent graduate looking for something to tide you over while you search for something more long-term, or you’re keen to pick up some extra part-time work to cover the rising costs of, well, everything? You might be so stressed out – or so happy to get what seems like a fresh lead – that you don’t do your due diligence.

That’s why this particular genre of scam feels so savage. “If you’re not job hunting, you might think, ‘Well, of course it’s a scam,’” says careers coach Dr Naomi Tyrrell. But if you’re out there doing what’s now required to maximise your chances of securing a new job – sharing your CV, networking, registering with recruiters, being active on LinkedIn, posting on social media – then it’s “less easy to tell a scam from a real opportunity”.

Essentially, frauds like these are targeting people who are going through the wringer – much like romance scams, where a fraudster feigns interest in a relationship with the victim to exploit them for money, tugging on the heartstrings of the lonely and isolated. “These scams are particularly cruel because they prey on people who are already vulnerable,” says career and job search coach Hannah Salton. “Promises of guaranteed income can be very appealing when job security feels uncertain, or when someone has been searching for work for a long time.” Plus, sometimes recruiters do contact you out of the blue, potentially even years after you’ve popped your details on a job site.

Thanks to rejection, ghosting from prospective employers, and long, drawn-out application processes, job seekers’ confidence is often low enough as it is, Salton adds. “This can mean people are more likely to latch on to any sign of recognition or opportunity.”

So how can we stay safe if we’re genuinely on the lookout for a new role? Spelling errors and poor grammar can be immediate red flags, Tyrrell says. Plus, the phone number or contact details given will not align with the company named in the message, and the links to any websites might feature misspellings, too. Curran also recommends taking time to research the company and the role before rushing to get in touch. “See if previous or current employees have posted about working there,” she suggests. “A fake website and social media presence are easy to set up, but it is much harder to accumulate comments on various third-party sites over a sustained period.”

And if someone is promising huge rewards for very little effort, and it just sounds too good to be true? Chances are, it probably is.