AARP Hearing Center
How to Steer Clear of Work-From-Home Job Scams
Keep bogus employers at bay so you can find legitimate ways to make money remotely
Identifying work-from-home scams can be tricky, especially as they often appear alongside legitimate opportunities on popular job-search websites. You might also get a text: “Hello, I’m Mary from [company name], are you open for work?” The pay is $250 to $500 a day!
If you’re a retiree looking to supplement your Social Security or, certainly, anyone needing to make ends meet, it can be awfully tempting to follow those leads. Who wouldn’t like to earn big money stuffing envelopes or posting online ads from the comfort of your couch, or get all the tools and training needed to start a lucrative home-based business?
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But few of these out-of-the-blue offers ever lead to actual income. Instead, they’re liable to leave you with a lighter bank account or even heavily in debt.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says that business and job opportunity scams were among the top scams people reported to the agency in 2024, with losses of $501 million — more than five times the $90 million reported lost in 2020. And because fraud is notoriously underreported, the actual amount is undoubtedly far higher..
The median loss in those cases was $2,000, among the highest for fraud categories tracked by the FTC.
What work-from-home job scams look like
Typical schemes invite you to get to work stuffing envelopes, processing billing forms for medical offices, filling out online surveys, doing typing or data entry, or assembling crafts. You’ll often be asked to pay something up front for supplies, certifications, coaching or client leads — or sent a check to cover such expenses, which turns out to be bogus.
In return you may get a load of useless information, or nothing at all, or a demand that you place more ads to recruit more people into the scheme.
Nearly all of these bogus work-from-home job offers involve stunningly high pay for little work. What the scammers are after: your money or your personal information for identity theft.
Some victims have reported that, after answering a few questions on the app, they received an offer, a contract and a request for their personal data and banking information.
More elaborate frauds promise to set you up in an online business — again, for a price, which can rapidly escalate into the thousands of dollars as one paid “training program” leads to another.
Other supposed job opportunities make you an unwitting money mule, essentially assisting the scammers with their crimes. The BBB says the criminals often will hire people for reshipping scams: They’ll use stolen credit card numbers to order products, then instruct the victims to repackage the goods and send the packages to a new address. “The accomplices who were hired for this fraudulent type of work are never paid,” says the BBB, “and their identities may be used to open bank accounts.”
In fact, the BBB warns, sometimes criminals’ apparent goal is identity theft: In its 2020 study of employment scams, the organization found that 34 percent of victims provided their driver’s license number and 25 percent provided their Social Security or Social Insurance number in the process of applying for a bogus job.
There are genuine work-from-home jobs out there. The trick is knowing how to spot the real opportunities in a sea of empty — and costly — promises.
Warning Signs
- A job ad claims that no skills or experience are required.
- It offers high pay for little or no work.
- They ask to communicate through private channels, such as WhatsApp, rather than via email and phone.
- Your earnings are based primarily on recruiting other people to join the operation. It's probably a pyramid scheme.
- The manager refuses to meet by video chat (although AI is making it easier for scammers to fake a professional persona).
- You're required to pay up front for training, certifications, directories or materials, or you’re sent a check that will supposedly cover such expenses.
How to protect yourself from work-from-home job scams
- Don’t click on links in texts or emails from someone you don’t know.
- Check out the company offering the job with your state consumer protection agency and with the Better Business Bureau in your community and the area where the company is located.
- Learn about the FTC’s Business Opportunity Rule, which requires companies to disclose key information about business opportunities they are selling, to provide references and to back up claims about how much you can earn.
- Ask detailed questions. Some that the FTC recommends asking include:
- How will I be paid? By salary or by commission?
- Who will pay me, and when will the checks start?
- What is the total cost of the program, and what will I get for my money?
- Check that job sites specializing in remote work screen the openings and companies listed.
- Don’t assume a work-at-home offer is on the level because you saw it in a trusted newspaper or on a legitimate job website. It could still be a scam. If you spot a suspicious listing, report it to the publication or site.
- Don’t believe website testimonials. Fake work-at-home sites are full of personal stories of people (often struggling single moms) making thousands of dollars a month because they took advantage of this amazing opportunity.
More Resources
- If you believe you have been exploited by a work-at-home job scam, you can file a complaint with tthe FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at IC3.gov. (Find out more about how and where to report scams here.)
- The Better Business Bureau can tell you if it has received complaints about a particular work-at-home program (although a lack of complaints doesn’t guarantee it’s not a scam).
- Listen to this episode of AARP’s The Perfect Scam podcast for more on employment scams.
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