Job scammers lure you in with jobs that require little effort for a high financial reward, and that appear to make money quickly. Scammers will typically advertise on social media or legitimate employments sites. They might even contact you directly, through email, encrypted chat applications, over the phone or in a letter.
You might be asked to pay a fee in exchange for guaranteed employment. Once you pay the fee, you're unlikely to be paid for any work you complete, and may not receive any job offers.
Scammers may ask you to provide your bank account details or your PayID to receive a payment. You may then be asked to transfer the money received to another bank account or cryptocurrency exchange - often with a promise to receive a percentage as a commission or wage. This is known as 'money muling', and is often facilitating the transfer of illegal and likely stolen funds.
However, there are steps you can take to protect yourself and work being done to prevent this type of scam.
The National Anti-Scam Centre’s Job Scam Fusion Cell removed more than 29,000 scam social media accounts and 1850 fake job advertisements in a crackdown on employment scams targeting vulnerable Australians looking to ease cost of living pressures.
The fusion cell, which ran from September 2024 to March 2025, has published its
report highlighting the combined efforts of government, law enforcement, academics, and the private sector in a coordinated effort to tackle the sharp rise in job and employment scams.
From 2022 to 2023, financial losses due to job scams increased by 151 per cent. In 2024, Scamwatch received more than 3000 reports of job scams, with reported losses totalling $13.7 million. Average losses to these scams were 5.1 per cent higher than the average for all other scam types.
“Job scams have been one of the fastest growing scam types, as scammers are increasingly preying on people seeking relief from cost-of-living pressures,” ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said.
“These scams disproportionately impact people on low incomes, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, international students, non-resident visa holders, people with caring responsibilities, and others with limited employment options.”
“Job scams result in significant financial losses and put people at risk of identity theft through loss of personal information. That’s why we’ve worked collaboratively to disrupt these scams through intelligence-sharing, awareness campaigns, and targeted interventions,” Ms Lowe said.
Key initiatives undertaken and implemented by the Job Scam Fusion Cell include:
- Working with Meta to remove 29,000 accounts sharing job scam content
- Referring 836 scammer cryptocurrency wallets to digital currency exchanges for analysis and investigation, leading to blocking and blacklisting of wallets
- Referring 1850 scam enablers such as websites and scam job advertisements for removal
- Disrupting scammers’ impersonation of Australian Government entities, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Home Affairs, and APSJobs
- Holding awareness and prevention forums with organisations across the tertiary education sector to enable them to deliver scams awareness messaging
- Coordinating a social media campaign, tailored for at-risk groups
- Creating guides for businesses, including about how to protect themselves and the community from impersonation of their business and regarding identification and disruption of Job Scam Payments
- Establishing data sharing arrangements with cryptocurrency platforms
The fusion cell identified key risks with the impersonation of healthcare providers in scam job advertisements being used to harvest personal information and extract money from job seekers.
The National Anti-Scam Centre provided tailored advice to more than 40 organisations in the sector, including major state and territory hospitals, and small healthcare services, to help better protect job seekers. These efforts contributed to a near elimination of Scamwatch reports involving impersonation of healthcare organisations by March 2025.
In addition to these specific initiatives, the fusion cell provides a great sandbox environment – participants can move beyond saying to doing, to try different techniques and see what works. A number of Job Scam Fusion Cell initiatives are now being examined for their application to other scam types. Others have become part of business-as-usual activity past the life of the fusion cell.
“The work of the job scam fusion cell has been strategically targeted, drawing on data from victims' experiences, Scamwatch and ReportCyber reports, stakeholder insights, and intelligence from participants. This approach has helped prevent and disrupt scams and has achieved significant and encouraging results,” Ms Lowe said.
The National Anti-Scam Centre continues to work with partners across sectors to analyse emerging threats, raise awareness, and implement targeted interventions that disrupt scams before they reach consumers.
Job and employment scams
- Scammers advertise job opportunities so they can steal money and personal information. Stop and check any job ad that requires payment of money to make money. It could be a scam.
- Scammers offer jobs that claim to pay well with low effort. But it’s only the scammer that will make money in the end. Often the job doesn’t exist at all.
- Scammers pretend to be hiring on behalf of high-profile companies and online shopping platforms. They also impersonate well-known recruitment agencies.
- Scammers may make contact unexpectedly through text message or encrypted message platforms like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram.
- Scammers often ask for payment claiming it is required so you can start the role and get the income they’ve promised. Don’t enter any arrangement that asks for up-front payment via bank transfer, PayID or cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin or USDT. It’s rare to get money back that is sent this way.
- Don’t trust a job ad is real just because it appears on a trusted platform or website – scammers post fake ads too. If you come across a scammer, report it to the platform or agency and to scamwatch.gov.au.
- Never send passport, identity documents, or bank account details to an employer or recruitment firm unless certain they are genuine.
How to spot and avoid scams
STOP – Don’t give money or personal information to anyone if you’re unsure. Scammers will create a sense of urgency. Don’t rush to act. Say ‘no’, hang up, delete.
CHECK – Ask yourself could the call or text be fake? Scammers pretend to be from organisations you know and trust. Contact the organisation using information you source independently, so that you can verify if the call is real or not.
PROTECT – Act quickly if something feels wrong. Contact your bank immediately if you lose money. If you have provided personal information call IDCARE on 1800 595 160. The more we talk the less power they have.
Report scams to the National Anti-Scam Centre’s Scamwatch service at
scamwatch.gov.au when you see them. If you’re contacted on a messaging platform like WhatsApp or iMessage, please also report the scam in the app.
Background
Fusion cells are time-limited taskforces designed to bring together expertise from government and the private sector to take timely action to address specific, urgent scam issues. The National Anti-Scam Centre is coordinating a series of fusion cells with different participants to address significant scam issues.
The second fusion cell was announced in July 2024, following the first fusion cell on combatting investment scams.
