Beware of fake work-from-home job ads during Covid-19 heightened alert period
Farah Daley
Posted on 24 May 2021 | 4,858 views | 1 comment
A new scam has surfaced involving fake job advertisements.
The police warned members of the public who are looking for work-from-home jobs during the Covid-19 heightened alert period and upcoming school holidays to be on their guard against these scams.
Job seekers might become victims of the scam or unknowingly be used as money mules to launder the proceeds of criminal activities.
In such scams, victims would receive unsolicited text, WhatsApp or Telegram messages or come across Facebook advertisements offering highly paid work-from-home jobs as a personal assistant to perform marketing-related jobs.
For example, the scammers would claim that the job requires the victim to:
- Help merchants to improve their sales by performing tasks such as placing items into shopping carts or liking posts on social media platforms; and/or
- Make payments to bank accounts in order to receive a commission based on the amount transferred.
- If it is too good to be true, it probably is. Do not accept dubious job offers that offer lucrative returns for minimal effort;
- If you are randomly invited into a messaging application group chat that you suspect is promoting a scam, report the group chat using the in-app function immediately to prevent others from falling prey to scams;
- If possible, always verify the authenticity of the job with the official websites or sources; and
- Do not click on suspicious URLs or download applications from unknown sources.
Source: