All you need to know about task scams

Scammers are dangling the bait of flexible hours, remote working and ‘daily commissions’ for simple online tasks such as liking videos, leaving reviews and completing surveys. 

Job scams are cruel and effective, targeting those who are desperate to find work or earn extra money. 

On average, £1,420 is lost by each person caught by a job scam, according to new Lloyds data, though the bank said 7% of victims lost over £5,000 in the past six months. Over half of all cases involve victims aged 18 to 34 (53%), though Which? has heard from older victims, too. 

Here, we explain how a typical job scam works and hear from one victim in her seventies who lost a devastating sum when she agreed to place adverts for tourist attractions online for a fictitious ‘Google’ company.

Sign up for scam alerts

Our emails will alert you to scams doing the rounds, and provide practical advice to keep you one step ahead of fraudsters.

Sign up for scam alerts

Unpicking a typical task scam

Job scams take many different forms, but one of the most prevalent is ‘task scams’, which promise commission if you complete a series of simple online tasks in your own time. 

You are most likely to be approached by job scammers on messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram or social media, based on reports to the Which? Scam Sharer tool, though a handful of people told us they were first contacted by telephone or via job listing sites. They can easily create slick websites to appear credible or impersonate recruitment agencies and job sites such as Indeed or Reed. 

Lloyds Bank warns that you may be asked to pay upfront fees for application processing, training, DBS checks or even visa sponsorship – known as ‘advanced fees’, saying that once payments are made, ‘victims are often ghosted or blocked’. Scammers sometimes go as far as simulating entire recruitment processes, including fake interviews, onboarding, and contracts. 

You could be manipulated into forwarding money or acting as an intermediary – unknowingly becoming money mules, which is a criminal offence.

Dangling the bait

Which? has found that you may earn a small sum initially, to reel you in, but before long, the catch becomes clear. You’ll be asked to pay to ‘upgrade your account’ to unlock more tasks, for example, or send money to release your ‘commission’ or cover ‘tax liabilities’. It’s all a lie. 

Money tends to be shifted in cryptocurrency and other less traceable methods, such as foreign transfer apps. Scammers may bamboozle you with made-up jargon, or use coercive tactics to convince you to send money to accounts they control. 

One person told Which? about a job scam involving fake pay-per-click tasks. He had previously signed up for a mailing list about online side-income jobs and was contacted via WhatsApp with an offer of cash for clicking online adverts and reviews. 

He was set up with an online account that showed a balance that decreased with each click. When the balance turned negative, he was pressured to top it up with his own money. He initially paid £30 and received £100 commission via cryptocurrency, which eased any concerns that anything was amiss. As he continued, the balance went negative repeatedly, each time requiring larger top-ups that escalated to £350. 

On the final task, with just two clicks left, his balance suddenly dropped to -£2,500 and his ‘advisor’ refused to release these ‘earnings’ unless he cleared it. He was aggressively urged to borrow money or take out loans, at which point he realised with a sinking heart that it was a scam.

The ‘Google Travels UK’ task scam

Getting caught up in a job scam can lead to devastating losses for people who can least afford it. 

Danielle (not her real name), age 75, was contacted out of the blue by a fabricated company called ‘Google Travels UK’ on WhatsApp. She had been looking for work at the time and was attracted by the promise of daily earnings for placing adverts for tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower and the Tower of London. 

After being assigned a ‘trainer’, Danielle was told she would earn commission as long as she kept placing adverts and maintained a minimum balance in her online work account – the higher this balance was, the higher the commission. She initially cashed out a profit of £150 and was invited to join a WhatsApp group where other supposed workers posted about their achievements and bonuses. 

‘This was to encourage a “mark” like me to keep doing tasks and transferring money,’ says Danielle. ‘It’s a never-ending spiral of transfers and you keep thinking, if I complete this task I will get my deposits back. After four days, I was elevated to VIP level and was asked to transfer a huge sum to complete the task and get a big payout. That’s when the penny dropped.’

In total, she was convinced to make more than 200 payments (ranging from £30 to £100) in one week from an e-money account she opened specifically for the 'job'. She also made four card payments totalling £7,500 from her current account to an international money transfer app, from which the money was then shifted to bank accounts in Indonesia and never seen again. 

In total, the scammers had bagged £18,650 in little more than a week. All of the payment providers involved said Danielle would not be reimbursed because she had failed to conduct independent research before accepting the job opportunity. 

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) later ruled that both her bank and the e-money provider should reimburse some of these payments, due to missed opportunities to intervene sooner and prevent further losses, though Danielle remains out of pocket to the tune of more than £10,000.

Top tips to avoid advanced fee job scams

Liz Ziegler, Fraud Prevention Director at Lloyds, says: 'These job scams are evolving rapidly, blending digital sophistication with emotional manipulation. Fraudsters are taking advantage of genuine job seekers, drawing them in with fake advertisements that promise remote work with substantial payouts, only to leave them financially and emotionally drained. 

'To feel secure in your online activity, it’s key to be informed and up to date on the latest scams so you can easily spot something that looks suspicious. If you find yourself being asked to make any sort of payment to apply for a job, take a step back and ask yourself if the opportunity feels legitimate. Take time to independently research the role and company being presented to you.'

Lloyds offers the following tips to avoid job scams:

1. Be cautious of unsolicited adverts or job offers promising easy money, especially on social media, which is a key ‘hunting ground’ for fraudsters. If you spot one, report it to Action Fraud.
2. Remember, no legitimate company will ask you to make payments when applying for a job, nor would they ask you to use your own bank account to transfer their money. Do not do it under any circumstances.
3. Verify recruiters and companies independently, do your own research and don’t rely on links and documents they provide.
4. Avoid opportunities where you are added to unknown apps or group chats that claim to be part of the process.

Reporting job scams

If you think you’ve been scammed, it’s generally best to report this to your bank or card provider first, along with Action Fraud (or call 101 for Police Scotland), then tell any other companies involved.

If you were originally contacted on LinkedIn, Indeed, or another job board, report the offenders to these platforms to attempt to get them removed. On social media and messaging sites such as WhatsApp and Facebook, you can typically report individual users and posts by clicking the ellipsis (three dots) for a drop-down menu. 

Collect anything related to the scam as evidence for your bank and Action Fraud, such as emails or messages exchanged with the scammers, links to any websites they asked you to visit and receipts or bank statements showing any transactions related to the scam. 

• Find out more: how to report scams to warn others

Can you get your money back after a job scam?

It can be difficult to get your money back because payments are usually considered 'authorised', even though you're being manipulated by sophisticated cybercriminals. The starting position is that a payment provider isn’t liable for transactions that you authorise, however, different protections are in place depending on the way you paid. For example:

• Bank transfers to UK accounts: if you unwittingly send money to a scammer using Faster Payments (bank transfers from one UK account to another), you can make a claim under new mandatory reimbursement rules for authorised push payment (APP) fraud, in place since 7 October 2024.
• Card payments and credit agreements: you can attempt to use Section 75 (legal protection for credit payments over £100) or chargeback (for disputed debit and credit card payments of any value), though this isn’t always successful in cases of authorised fraud.
• Other: payments involving cryptocurrency and payment apps such as Remitly, Skrill and WorldRemit have no direct legal protections against authorised fraud, though you should make a formal complaint regardless. If you funded these from your current account first, you should make a claim via your bank or building society as well.

If your claim is rejected, you can take your complaint, for free, to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which will consider relevant rules and regulations, as well as good industry practice. For example, all payment firms are expected to be on the lookout for account activity that might suggest a customer is at risk of financial harm, including intervening when they spot unusual or out-of-character transactions.

• Find out more: how to take a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman