We’d all love to imagine that a job recruiter has spotted a high-end job that is just the perfect fit for us. Who wouldn’t be flattered to be “selected for a high-priority shortlist” for our rare caliber of sophisticated skills?
Or have a shot at working from home for a reputable company? Maybe doing some “click-based” tasks on your cell phone or laptop?
Yep, it’s all a scam.
A fake job recruiter makes you feel wanted
A lengthy, highly complimentary email arrived out of the blue in late March and touched upon a long list of my co-worker’s personal professional highlights.
Shockingly, the recruiter had done her homework, knowing how long my co-worker was in the news business, his unique skill set relating to video production and more. They didn’t need a generalist, no, this supposed leadership role at the New York Times, well, it required much more. And my co-worker in Detroit had it.
He had only 48 hours to jump on it, according to the email, which included the recruiter’s picture.
“You must let me know if you are interested in moving forward to be connected with the team and discuss the trajectory of this application.”
Funny thing, my co-worker ended up getting three different emails one day. All from different recruiters. All for different high-end jobs. All scams.
Funny thing, Richard Graham received a flattering email with a recruiter’s picture on it recently, too.
“I did a double take. I knew it was a scam, but I was like, ‘let me look,’ ” said Graham, director and industry practice lead financial crime for Moody’s Analytics.
After reading the email carefully, he realized that the scammers had scraped his very public social media profile and other information available online to craft a convincing letter.
“They didn’t mention my current company, Moody’s. They mentioned companies from like three years ago,” Graham said.
“That’s how I know they were just using some sort of bots to scrape the right things.”
By tapping into someone’s real life work experience, though, the emails are written just well enough to get some job hunters to respond.
“It was clever and sophisticated and easy to fall for, especially if you’re really looking for a job and you need income,” Graham said.
Why would a job recruiter use Gmail?
Yet here’s what should be a huge clue: The emails sent to my friend and Graham both came from a Gmail account.
Many big companies prohibit employees from using Gmail for work due to security concerns. While the fraudster used the name of a real person at a real company, a professional recruiter isn’t going to be using Gmail.
If you reply to one of these messages or emails, Graham says, it’s important to recognize another red flag if the only contact is made by text or chat app.
“Nobody hires just over a text message or any chat apps ever,” Graham said.
Another sign of a job scam: Every step from the minute you’re recruited, interviewed and hired is all done online. And you might never be asked for professional references.
What do job scammers want?
How the scam plays out, Graham noted, will vary.
Most likely, he said, the fraudsters behind these emails would at some point ask for money — sent by cryptocurrency, wire transfer, even gift cards — to cover some false claim that the person needs to pay for equipment, training or some other requirement to do the fake job.
“They might say they have a check you need to deposit — and then ask you to send them money back,” according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Sadly, you’re dealing with a fake check that will bounce at some point along the way, leaving you out the cash.
How one Troy man found work but lost money
A 44-year-old man found a job in May 2025 when he was contacted on WhatsApp about a part-time job relating to cryptocurrency. The crooks said he needed to “invest in cryptocurrency to cover negative balances.”
But according to a Troy police report he made nearly a year later, the job ultimately turned out to be a scam. He was instructed to invest in cryptocurrency, as part of the scam, but lost his money.
To top it off, the millennial was contacted later by someone claiming to be an attorney who could help him recover his money.
“The victim sent additional funds in cryptocurrency to the supposed recovery service before realizing that it was also a scam,” according to a Troy police report.
Experts note that scammers often trigger a so-called negative balance in some accounts to get you to panic. The con artists might claim that you did something wrong when performing the task or there was a glitch. And they’ll demand you pay more money or say that your account is now frozen. Ultimately, you cannot access any of the money that you put into the account or made on this so-called job.
How job scams are likely to build
We’re more likely to see an uptick in employment scams when the jobless rate climbs or key industries slash payrolls.
Recent college grads age 22 through 27 could be particularly vulnerable this year, as they’re facing a significantly higher unemployment rate as a group than all other workers. The jobless rate for those younger college grads was 5.6% in March, compared with 4.2% for all workers, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The use of AI makes employment scams likely to grow in general, as well, said Graham, at Moody’s.
Scammers increasingly will tap into artificial intelligence agents to seamlessly personalize pitches and flood email boxes.
Those agents might find what you posted publicly on social media and job sites, Graham said, and easily scan the web to see more of your professional work, such as published reports. All that extra information makes those recruiting emails sound even more authentic.
Using AI agents, he said, would allow a small group of scammers to scale in a big way.
AI only makes job scams more believable
In 2025, those who filed reports with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported losses of almost $13 million to AI-involved employment type scams.
While people have manipulated video and audio for years to perpetrate scams, the FBI noted in its most recent IC3 report that new technology makes it possible to create high quality content that can be more difficult to detect.
Many times, con artists don’t want only money. The crooks use job scams, just like other scams, to gain control of your device or private computer network, according to authorities and consumer watchdogs. They’re out to collect personal information, financial information or install ransomware.
Criminals might ask for your bank account information or Social Security number as part of the so-called hiring process. Scammers can use your information for ID theft or later sell it on the dark web.
Job scams soar in a few years
Fake recruiters are out in full force, according to the Federal Trade Commission. In 2025, the FTC reported that 30,715 consumers reported being hit by some sort of job scam. These consumers either lost money or avoided getting scammed. The total reported losses added up to $79.5 million.
That’s up nearly 10 times from $8 million reported for job and employment scam losses in 2021.
Job scams do not always start out with con artists sending elaborate emails. Many times, the crooks will reach out by unexpected texts or messaging apps, such as WhatsApp or Telegram messages, according to the FTC.
In a new twist, some scammers aren’t asking you to click on links. Instead, the FTC says, some fake job recruiters ask you to reply with “Yes” or “Interested.”
“Don’t do this, no matter how ‘professional’ the graphics or message looks and sounds. They want you to engage so they can scam you,” according to the FTC.
Crooks and con artists stole a record $15.9 billion in 2025 in a variety of scams — up from $12.5 billion in 2024, according to the latest data from the Federal Trade Commission.
The data doesn’t tell the full story because often people don’t report money lost to scams.
The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2025 as the central hub for reporting cyber-enabled crime. The center started out getting a few complaints a month but now averages some 3,000 complaints a day. Consumers are encouraged to file a complaint at www.ic3.gov.
In 2025, according to FBI data, 24,688 people filed complaints relating to employment-related scams or crimes with nearly $363 million being reported lost. Employment fraud, in this context, is defined as a case where someone believes they are legitimately employed and loses money. Or the victim ends up laundering money or items during their employment.
Employment fraud has skyrocketed in just two years when 15,443 consumers reported employment fraud incidents with IC3 in 2023 and about $70 million was reported lost to employment fraud.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the FBI’s IC3 data indicated that people age 20 through 49 were particularly vulnerable to employment-related scams. In the age 40 to 49 group, for example, 4,524 people reported losses to employment scams or crimes in 2025 with the dollars lost exceeding $57 million.
Total losses for all types of scams reported to IC3 exceeded the $20 billion mark for cyber-enabled crime.
What kind of jobs can be scams?
In some cases, you might be recruited to do a series of online tasks. Maybe, you’re asked to open a bank account. Or complete a crypto transfer.
Or the crooks might ask you to give positive ratings or reviews, to earn money. According to the FTC: “Don’t trust anyone who says they’ll pay you to give a positive rating or like things online. No honest company will do that.”
In some cases, according to the Better Business Bureau, recent college grads can be drawn in by scammers who are promoting unrealistic wages for general jobs, such as “virtual assistant” or “customer service rep.”
Sometimes, the crooks will have you on the hook for quite some time — driving up the dollars lost.
“These tasks vary from scheme to scheme — but they all require the victim to deposit their own money, via cryptocurrency or money transfers, into a platform for the job to be completed,” according to an FBI alert about job scams.
Some of these scams trick you with promises of big commissions, which never end up being paid.
You’re still out of work — and you’re out all the money you could scrape together by tapping into savings, pulling out credit cards, or begging to borrow from family and friends to hand over to a scammer as part of the so-called “job.”
Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on X @tompor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: AI gives job scammers a new edge for sounding even more believable
Reporting by Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
