NEW YORK — As job-seekers look for work in a challenging environment, an increasing number are falling victim to job scams that promise good pay for completing easy online tasks, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The scams start innocuously, often with a tailor-made text or WhatsApp message, and the scammers take time to build trust with the victim before cashing in on the relationship.
“Most of the people who end up losing money to a scammer are behaving pretty rationally,” said Kati Daffan, assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission’s division of marketing practices. “Scammers are sophisticated, and they keep changing their tactics.”
Reported losses to job scams increased more than threefold from 2020 to 2023. In the first half of 2024, they topped $220 million, according to the FTC. Gamified job scams, or task scams, represented a significant portion of that growth. About 20,000 people reported experiencing gamified