Fast-growing scam targets WFH job hunters

One of Australia’s fastest-growing scams is targeting people searching for work-from-home jobs.

A scam targeting work-from-home job hunters has been found to cost Australians more than all other scam types combined.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released findings from a taskforce established to tackle job and employment scams – the fastest growing scam type of 2023.

Scamwatch reports for the 2024 calendar year, Australians lost $13.7m to job and employment scams, with an average loss of $14,470.

This is 5.1 per cent higher than the average loss for all other scam types combined.

Job scams – which often come in the form of fraudulent offers of employment designed to encourage victims into giving money, providing personal information, or working for free – often target people seeking additional income, and flexible or work-from-home opportunities.

The scams were found to have the greatest impact on people with low incomes, from culturally diverse communities, people living with disabilities and international students.

The report found that fraudsters often impersonated reputable recruitment organisations such as Seek, LinkedIn and Adecco.

The Australian Federal Police warns criminals are aggressively targeting Australians looking for flexible, remote or part-time work by posting fake job ads online. Picture: Supplied

Often, scammers message people with a job offer that includes a high income, working from home and little effort.

They then attempt to acquire a victim’s personal information or trick them into providing free labour.

Another type of job scam is “money mule” scams, where an innocent victim is recruited to launder money for a criminal organisation.

“The impact of job scams can be devastating and is likely significantly underreported by victims,” ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe wrote in the report.

“Many job scam victims report that they have lost their life savings as well as money they have borrowed from family and friends

“In addition to these financial impacts, victims incur additional harm through the loss of personal information leading to an increased likelihood of future scam losses and identity crime.

“The cost of a victim’s loss of trust in recruitment processes and loss of confidence in their ability to secure meaningful employment is hard to quantify.”

Government, law enforcement and industry are collaborating in an attempt to combat the growing issue. Picture: NewsWire / Diego Fedele

In 2024, 78 per cent of those who provided their age when reporting a job scam were under 44, and 18.8 per cent of job scam victims who lost money self-reported English as their second language compared with 7.7 per cent for other scam types.

The National Anti-Scam Centre’s Job Scam Fusion Cell brought together government, law enforcement and industry to attempt to combat the growing issue.

The taskforce, which ran for six months from September 2024, led to the referral of 836 scammer cryptocurrency wallets to digital currency exchanges for analysis and investigation, leading to blocking and black-listing.

Intelligence sharing led to Meta’s removal of about 29,000 accounts engaged in job scams in Australian Facebook groups, and 1850 scam enablers such as websites and scam job advertisements were referred for removal.