“Work from home” is a word that any person can easily interpret as something that we can do by sitting at our home, or it can be said that we work remotely. This scheme existed very much before the covid pandemic, mostly in the form of freelancing work. The countries like Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Australia, the UK, and many more offer plenty of opportunities for people to work remotely.
However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the trend of working from home has become widespread in many countries. And this is the time when most of the scams happen in the name of “Work from home.”
Although, all work from home is not fake. Many professionals work from outside the office. How can you detect the real and fake one?
To identify which is real and which is fake, you have to read this post till last. But before that, let’s first know what work from home scam is.
What Is Work From Home Scams?
Work from home scams is when mendacious or deceitful people create fake job postings to benefit themselves. Such a person may use various means to steal your personal information or financial assets.
As more and more people are craving flexible work schedules, the popularity of working from home is also rising. On analysing this craving, the scammers are also targeting the such market with highly lucrative job offers. They present themselves as a trustworthy company or a reputable person to gain your trust. Then they force you to do registration by giving fees to do such a job. In the beginning, they promised to pay you, but later on, they pretended that you had committed a lot of mistakes and our company has suffered a lot of losses. They demand money to compensate for the loss, and if you do not pay them, they will blackmail or threaten you in various ways.
Ways To Identify Work From Home Scams
Job offer without an interview
Many deceitful persons pretend themselves as a respectable position holder in the company or the company’s HR Manager and offer you the job. The offer looks exactly like a real one where they tell you that you have got a great opportunity to work with our company. In this way, they ask for various personal details along with bank account details. Then they ask OTP for fake registration or linking. On sharing the OTP, money will be deducted from your bank account. And when you call them back, they will never receive it.
Earn more money with less work
A reputed company pays you only according to your work value. But when anyone offers you to earn more than your expected amount, such as Rs. 25,000 to 50,000 for only a little work. Be aware of it! They are mostly scammers. They describe it as an easy way to earn money, the Best job for homemakers, students preparing for competitive exams, and many other ways.
Advertisement tips or offer
You might have seen various advertisement tips such as “Want to do a part-time job?”, “want to easy work from home jobs?”, “Anyone can do the job, no skills required,” “Marketing through phone call job,” “Typing job,” “Best jobs in Bhubaneswar or any other place,” etc. These types of advertisement links on an unknown websites are sometimes a scam. Such scammers mostly ask you for a security deposit. Unfortunately, most job aspirants fall this prey and lose money.
Lacks job details
If a job posting or offer provides minimal description about the job and promises you easy and quick hiring, that might be a signal of a fake job. You also are not able to find any historical information about the company or its employees.
More spelling or grammatical mistakes in an offer letter
When you receive an offer letter with a lot of spelling mistakes or grammatical errors, then it might be fake. A reputed company may rarely or not commit such mistakes.
Pay money to work
A common scam where an employer asks to deposit some money as security to get started. They claim that you first deposit the money and begin the work, and after the end of the first month, you will get back your money. However, there are many legitimate online job boards where you need to pay a subscription fee. So keep this in mind while searching for remote jobs.
Generic email account
Scammers mostly use generic email domains such as @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com, and @outlook.com for sending scam emails. These accounts are free to use, and scammers can easily customize them to look as if they are coming from a legitimate organisation. When you check their website, it does not look like a legit site.
No special skills required
Generally, when a legitimate company hires you, they mostly emphasis on your skills. They prefer to know your skill so that they can decide whether to hire you or not. Scammers usually do not ask for any skills. They mostly emphasis on quick hiring. However, sometimes legitimate companies also do not ask for special skills according to their post requirement.
Ways To Avoid Work From Home Scams
Check company review on Google
If you find any suspicious thing about the particular company, search the company name on Google and check its review. If you do not find the name, then search the company name with a scam. Again if you do not find anything information about the company, do not join it. It might be a scam.
Check the company profile on LinkedIn
Linked is mostly the professionals’ place. Check the company name properly there if available. Do not join a company about which you are not getting any information. They might be scammers. So research properly.
Do not share your personal information
Do not share your personal information via phone call or email without knowing about them. They may later blackmail you or vacant your bank account.
File RTI
To know whether a company is a fraud or not, file RTI (Right To Information) online.
