Draft — pending CSRF review. This is source copy. It has not been through editorial, safety, and link review, so do not print or distribute it to a community yet.
Email copy
Fake job offers, for job seekers
For people who are job hunting and cannot afford to lose a penny, let alone a paycheck.
- For
- Workforce and job seekers, Universities, Newcomer communities
- Status
- Draft, pending review
- Version
- Set at review
Subject line
A job should never cost you money
If you are applying for work at the moment, it is worth knowing what fake job offers look like, because they are aimed at people who need the work quickly.
The rule that catches nearly all of them: a real employer never asks you to pay to start. Not for equipment, not for training, not for a background check, not for a starter kit.
Watch out too for an offer that arrives entirely by text or chat, with no real conversation, and moves straight to asking for your bank details or copies of your ID.
One trick deserves its own warning. You are sent a check, told to deposit it and send part of the money on to someone else. The money can appear in your balance for days before the bank works out the check is fake — and then the bank takes all of it back, including what you already sent. If anyone asks you to do this, it is a scam.
You do not have to work this out alone. Forward the offer to us at [YOUR EMAIL] and we will look at it with you before you reply.
Still to fill in: [YOUR EMAIL]. Replace it before you send this.
Before you send it: If you invite forwards, tell people not to include their own ID documents in the email.
Before you distribute this
- Use it: Job club emails, career-center newsletters, and campus mailings.
- Replace every bracketed placeholder with your organization's own details.
- Open every web address yourself before printing it.
- Current warnings live at watchout.report. Check the date on anything time-sensitive.
Cybersecurity Reach Foundation · cybersecurityreach.org · Current warnings: watchout.report
General safety information. CSRF is not a crisis, legal, banking, safeguarding, or law-enforcement service.