Scam alert: job scams to watch out for

Scammers are preying on job seekers again with appealing, but too-good-to-be-true, offers. 

Phoney job ads sent via text and WhatsApp claim to offer lots of money to complete tasks in your own time. These scams are typically used by fraudsters to groom you into an elaborate scam. 

Recently, recruitment companies including Capital Recruitment, Dalton Recruitment, Pinnacle Recruitment, Crossover Recruitment and Headstart Recruitment have been impersonated in scam texts asking you if you'd be interested in hearing about a job opportunity.

Below, we look at the four job scam messages currently circulating, and how you can spot and avoid them.

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

1. Recruitment impersonation scam

This scam is sent via text and on WhatsApp and typically sees scammers masking their numbers, known as spoofing, to send unsolicited messages telling you that they’re from legitimate recruitment agencies.

In some cases, the scammer behind the message is impersonating a real person at a real recruitment agency, so if you do some research you could be fooled into thinking they're a genuine recruiter. The message will typically offer to share some more specific details about a job with you.

Fake job texts currently circulating claim to be from companies:

• Capital Recruitment
• Pinnacle Recruitment
• Crossover Recruitment
• Headstart Recruitment
• Dalton Recruitment.

We contacted Pinnacle Recruitment, which told us it first started hearing about texts impersonating it in January 2024. It said also said that these messages appeared to originate from Africa and claimed that a person called Martha wanted to speak to recipients about potential job roles.

Pinnacle then saw another surge in scam texts in March 2025. This time the scammers disguised their original number by spoofing random UK mobile numbers.

It confirmed that it doesn't approach people via text, a person called Martha has never worked for Pinnacle Recruitment, and the company only recruits for civil engineering and construction roles.

Dalton Recruitment and Capital Recruitment also told Which? it had come across scam messages impersonating it that weren't genuine.

2. HR department message

In other recent job scam texts Which? has seen, fraudsters claim to be from a ‘HR department’ and tell you that they like your CV.

Some victims of this scam may actually be in the process of looking for a job and have posted their CV to job sites, making it even more convincing.

The message goes on to offer a salary of ‘£200-500’ a day as well as a WhatsApp link to continue the conversation with the scammer.

3. Ad for a non-existent job

This scam WhatsApp message provides details for a phoney ‘data job’, which claims to pay up to £30,000 a month for a work from home ‘data optimisation’ role.

Scams such as this attempt to lure you in with an attractive salary and flexible work offer.

4. Task scams

In most cases, random remote job scam messages lead to what’s known as a task scam. 

These scams usually start when a job scammer messages you out of the blue about a work opportunity and, if you ask for more details, will ask you to sign up to a dodgy website or app.

After signing up, the scammer will explain that you earn money by completing simple tasks. These can be watching videos, rating products or completing surveys.

You’ll then be asked to pay a fee to upgrade your account after completing a few tasks and you’ll never see your ‘earnings’ from completing the tasks.

This article was originally published in January 2025 and updated on 25 March 2025 with news of a recent surge in impersonation scams.