5 Types of Employment Scams You Need to Watch Out For Right Now

A client of mine spent two weeks in what looked like a real hiring process last month. A recruiter who knew her resume in detail. A hiring manager who asked sharp, specific follow-up questions. A signed offer letter with the company's real logo on it.

Then came the onboarding email: banking details for payroll setup, and a $340 charge for her "equipment kit" — fully refunded in her first paycheck, of course.

Before sending anything, she called the company. Not the number on the offer letter. The one listed on their actual website.

Nobody there had ever heard of her.

Then, another client asked why a recruiter would need to charge for an "ATS Compliant" resume before submitting their resume to a job of interest.

I wish I could tell you these situations were unusual. They aren't. For every legitimate interview you might secure right now, you probably run into a few fraudulent ones. That is not just bad luck: it's a documented, accelerating national trend, not a personal streak.

According to the FTC's own Consumer Sentinel Network data, reported losses to job scams have risen every single year since 2020, and nearly doubled from 2023 to 2024 alone.

And here's the part that should genuinely concern anyone job hunting right now: the FTC estimates fewer than 1 in 10 victims ever actually file a report. That $501 million figure isn't the real number. It's the visible fraction of it.

The version of this scam most of us learned to spot years ago was easy: broken English, "Dear Sir/Madam," a salary too good to be true for a job that required nothing. What's running now is more sophisticated. Here are the five patterns showing up most right now, and how each one actually works.

1. The clickfake interview. You receive a calendar invite for a Zoom or Teams call. The link looks right (same layout, same "Join Meeting" button ) but it routes to a cloned page on a different domain, built purely to capture your login the moment you type it in. Security researchers have given this exact pattern a name because it's common enough to warrant one.

2. The fake-check equipment scam. This is what nearly caught my client. You're "hired," sent a check for more than the cost of your equipment, and asked to wire back the difference. The check clears in your account within days, because banks are required to make funds available quickly — but it takes weeks to be discovered as counterfeit. When it bounces, you owe the bank the full amount. Fake-check scam victims lose an average of $2,000 to $4,000.

3. The "your resume isn't ATS compliant" pitch. A recruiter reaches out to you first, unsolicited and flattering — you're exactly what they're looking for. They ask for your resume, then return a day or two later: unfortunately, it isn't "ATS compliant." Good news, they know a service. There is no standardized ATS-compliant format. That phrase exists to make you feel like the problem is you, at the exact moment you're most primed to believe it.

4. Deepfake video interviews. The newest and most unsettling development. Real-time face-swapping filters are now convincing enough to impersonate a real person on a live call — a cybersecurity firm demonstrated this live on CBS News. Deepfake attempts in hiring reportedly increased more than 1,000% between 2023 and 2024. A face on your screen is no longer proof of anything.

5. Task scams. The fastest-growing category by volume. It starts with a random text or WhatsApp message about flexible online work — "app optimization," "product boosting." You complete simple tasks, watch fake earnings climb in an app, and are eventually told you need to pay a fee to "unlock" your payout. FTC reports of this specific pattern went from zero in 2020 to nearly 40% of all job scam reports by mid-2024.

The median loss across all job scam victims is $2,250 — second only to investment fraud. For a lot of people, that's rent.

What To Actually Do

How to Report It

Reporting doesn't just protect you. It's how patterns get flagged and listings get pulled before the next person falls for the same script.

• LinkedIn: three-dot menu on the job → "Report this job" → scam/fraud

• Indeed: "Report job" link directly on the listing

• FTC: ReportFraud.ftc.gov

• FBI IC3: IC3.gov — file here too if credentials, malware, or money were involved. This is the channel that actually feeds federal cybercrime investigations, and it's the one people skip most.

If you already sent money or shared financial information: call your bank immediately, and place a fraud alert or credit freeze with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion if your Social Security number was involved.

If you entered a password anywhere on a suspicious page: change it now, everywhere you've reused it, and check your email account for forwarding rules or unfamiliar login sessions you didn't set up. A compromised inbox is often used to target your own contacts next.

Quick Answers

How can I tell if a job offer is a scam? Check whether the role is listed on the company's own careers page, verify the sender's email domain matches the company's real website, and be wary of interviews that move quickly off-platform to WhatsApp or texting.

What is a clickfake interview? A fake calendar invite for a Zoom or Teams call that leads to a cloned login page on a different domain, built to steal your credentials rather than conduct a real interview.

Is there really such a thing as an "ATS compliant" resume? No — there's no standardized format. That phrase is commonly used to pressure candidates into paying for unnecessary "compliance" formatting.

What if I already gave up financial info or a password? Call your bank and freeze your credit with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion if your SSN was involved. Change any reused password immediately and check your email for forwarding rules you didn't set.

Where do I actually report this? LinkedIn and Indeed both have "Report" options directly on listings. For federal reporting, use ReportFraud.ftc.gov and IC3.gov.

Your Experience

Have you had one of these land in your inbox - the fake check, the ATS pitch, the Zoom link that wasn't quite right? What was the moment it clicked that something was off?

Or did you catch one early and want to share what tipped you off? Sometimes the "how I knew" is more useful to the next person than the scam itself.

Either way, drop it in the comments. The more of these stories are visible, the harder it gets for this to keep working on the next person scrolling through job listings tonight.

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Sources: FTC "Paying to get paid" Data Spotlight (Dec. 2024) · FTC "New FTC Data Show a Big Jump in Reported Losses to Fraud" (Mar. 2025) · FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book · Huntress, "What Is a Clickfake Interview?" · Lloyd Staffing, "Recruitment Scams Survival Guide" (Pindrop/CBS News deepfake demo) · Tony DeGonia, "The ATS Resume Scam Targeting Job Seekers on LinkedIn" · Consumers' Checkbook, "Job Scams Soar" · LinkedIn Help and Indeed Support (reporting procedures)