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This tempting work-from-home offer could land you in jail
It’s no exaggeration to say that COVID-19 has totally upended the global economy. According to labor statistics, 20.5 million U.S. jobs were lost in April alone. As of now, the unemployment rate sits at a staggering 14.7% — the worst since the Great Depression.
In spite of this, people aren’t giving up hope just yet. The job market may have dried up, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t employment opportunities for people comfortable working from home. Tap or click here to see what work-from-home jobs are hiring now.
As tempting as some of these remote jobs may seem, scammers and cybercriminals are also taking advantage of the new labor market. They’re offering jobs with extremely high pay rates that actually serve as vehicles for money laundering. And if you make the mistake of signing up, guess what: That makes you an accomplice to a crime!
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is
Job seekers beware: Cybercriminals are trying to rope you into their illicit activities through deceptive job listings and hiring pitches.
According to cybersecurity firm PhishLab, money laundering operations are taking advantage of jobless Americans by offering paid positions that net up to $5,000 monthly. They’re primarily targeting people via scam emails, but some of these fraudulent job listings have made it to public message boards and social media platforms.
Here’s how it works: The scam arrives as an extremely vague work-from-home job offer with promises of a wildly high paycheck. If you reply, you’ll be asked to perform a series of mundane tasks as part of your “interview.” In reality, this part is about establishing trust with the scammer.
Other versions of the scam go as far as masquerading as a legitimate employer like Wells Fargo Bank. These scam messages tend to go all-in on the deception and are chock full of misleading information designed to get you to cough up personally-identifying data. Tap or click here to see other COVID-19 phishing scams to watch for.
What happens if I take the bait?
Once you sign up, you’re asked to provide your bank account number so money can be moved into it. This is all you do for the job, which sounds like an easy way to make five grand, right?
In 2004, an escaped convict nicknamed the “Rooftop Robber,” or simply “Roofman,” hid for six months in which shuttered tech superstore: A.) CompUSA, B.) RadioShack, C.) Circuit City or D.) Fry’s Electronics?
$25 million
How much cryptocurrency MIT-educated brothers swiped in just 12 seconds. Clever, except Anton, 24, and James, 28, just got arrested for their 2023 ethereum heist. They studied computer science and math. Now they’ll have plenty of time to calculate the years they could spend in jail.