A GEORGIA woman’s bank account was down $30,000 thanks to her promising new job that turned out to be not-so-trustworthy.
The intricate and increasingly common scam, dubbed a “task scam,” began with a text message and series of legitimate payments from the victim’s new remote gig.
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The Georgia woman, named Dorothy, was in search of flexible work because of her health issues, applying for jobs online.
“My thing was to find something just a couple hours a day… two or three days a week,” she told a local outlet.
When the Georgia resident received a text offering her a remote job, she did not question it.
Dorothy had listed her information on a legitimate job search site, and the part-time, remote gig seemed easy enough.
“All you have to do is check the merchants’ accounts app, make sure the programming is correct,” recounted the victim. “You’ll be paid for the training.”
True to the company’s word, Dorothy was handed payment for the initial training and early tasks.
When the woman expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the work, she was presented with company credentials.
“I saw the name of the company… all the information matched,” said Dorothy, noting that she probably should have done further research.
The once-promising job, however, quickly turned into a costly scam.
“I was working. They were giving me back my bonus, and then they start saying, ‘You find some errors, you cannot move forward until you send us the money,’” recounted Dorothy.
“I paid about $30,000 in small increments going up,” said the woman.
She reported her case to both local and federal agencies but received few responses.
“Question everything… verify everything,” warned Dorothy.
She sent the requested cash over to the scammers via platforms such as PayPal, wire transfers, and cryptocurrency.
Expert Advice: How to protect yourself from fraud
Craig Costigan, the CEO of fraud experts NICE Actimize gave the following tips to readers of The U.S. Sun on how to stay safe from fraudsters.
- As the saying goes, trust but verify. Always question your text and email communications. It may not be from who you think it is. Look for giveaways that it is a scam email. If your bank contacts you about a fraud via a text or email, call the number on the back of your credit or debit card to contact the fraud department directly – much safer than giving data to an impersonator.
- Protect your personal identifying information such as social security cards, your blank checks and other IDs.
- Always be vigilant. Even the safest and most careful among us have encountered fraudsters – we survived
because we reported the activity immediately to our providers, changed our passwords and checked our credit reports for unusual activity. - If you are not applying for credit, you might also consider placing a freeze on your credit reports, such as Experian, TransUnion and Equifax, so fraudsters can’t open accounts in your name. You can easily unfreeze your credit when you want to open a new account.
Although Dorothy is aware that she will not get her cash back, she hopes that her experience will help prevent others from becoming victims.
“I just don’t want anyone else to fall in the same thing,” she said.
WHAT IS A TASK SCAM?
Dorothy fell for what is referred to as a “task scam,” which is becoming all the more common across the country, per the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC.
Fraudsters often send victims unsolicited text messages offering them remote work in areas such as “app optimization” or “product boosting.”
They then gain a victim’s trust by sending over small payments, later requesting larger investments from the worker in order for them to continue earning.
The company documents that the scammers sent to Dorothy, which featured the Maine Secretary of State seal, were confirmed as fake by a local outlet.
Dorothy’s case is just one of many that have pushed the FTC to send out public alerts warning of the scams.
Losses to job scams have increased threefold from 2020 to 2023, with a whopping $220 million lost in just the first half of last year, per the FTC.
Task scams are pushing those record numbers, according to the agency.
“These are professional syndicate criminals and alliances,” said FBI Atlanta supervisory special agent Aaron Seres.
“They understand you. They’ve looked at your social media. They’ve profiled you,” he said, noting that remote work, AI, and social media have all made these scams much tougher to detect.
“Before, this information would come like, ‘I’m the prince of Nigeria.’ It would be disjointed,” he said. “Now I can be in another country, don’t speak English. I can come across to you as if I’m across the street in Georgia.”
Investigating these fraudsters can be difficult because many of them live overseas, said Seres.
Many other Americans have lost thousands of dollars to fraudsters.
A young mom, for example, handed over $50,000 to a complete stranger after falling for a common lie – four ways to escape the trap.
Another couple lost their entire $270,000 retirement fund – they just paid off their debt but now have nothing.
