FTC Sounds Alarm Over Massive Spike In Online Game-Like Job Scams

Before you fill out that online job form in hopes of making some extra jingle for the holiday season, take heed of new warning by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). According to the FTC, there's been a "sharp spike" in online job scams that ask applicants to perform a set of fake tasks, which are designed to swindle them out of money.

Called task scams, one common method is to ping a potential applicant with a text or WhatsApp message (and we imagine possibly a voice transcript, which is a new WhatsApp feature) related to online work. These texts are usually vague, and once the user responds, they're asked to complete tasks related to things like "app optimization" or "product boosting." To make it more believable, a user may even receive a small payment, creating a sense of legitimacy.

Once that trust is established, the scammers get busy swindling victims in earnest. The next step often entails asking the applicant to spend their own money on a subsequent set of tasks, with a promise of more monetary awards on the horizon. No such awards actually await the applicant, though.

According to the FTC, these types of scams have "increased massively in the last four years," going from none at all as recently as 2020 to 5,000 reported scams in 2023 before quadrupling to 20,000 in just the first half of 2024 alone.

"These scams helped drive an overall increase in reported losses to job scams across the board, according to the spotlight. Overall reported losses on job scams tripled from 2020 to 2023 and were more than $220 million in just the first six months of 2024. Task scams were estimated to account for nearly 40% of the 2024 job scam reports," the FTC says.

As you might have guessed, cryptocurrency is the preferred payment method for task scams. To avoid falling prey, the FTC recommends ignoring generic generic and/or unexpected messages about jobs. It also says you should "never pay anyone to get paid," as that is a "sure sign of a scam." The FTC also says avoid promises of payment in exchange for rating or liking things online, as it's both "illegal and no honest company will do it."