A scam targeting work-from-home job hunters has been found to cost Australians greater than all other scam types combined.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released findings from a task force established to tackle job and employment scams – the fastest growing scam kind of 2023.
Scamwatch reports for the 2024 calendar 12 months, Australians lost $13.7 million to job and employment scams, with a median lack of $14,470.
That is 5.1 percent higher than the common loss for all other scam types combined.
Job scams – which frequently are available in the shape of fraudulent offers of employment designed to encourage victims into giving money, providing personal information, or working without spending a dime – often goal people looking for additional income, and versatile or work-from-home opportunities.
The scams were found to have the best impact on individuals with low incomes, from culturally diverse communities, people living with disabilities and international students.
The report found that fraudsters often impersonated reputable recruitment organizations similar to Seek, LinkedIn and Adecco.
Often, scammers message individuals with a job offer that features a high income, working from home and little effort.
They then attempt to accumulate a victim’s personal information or trick them into providing free labor.
One other kind of job scam is “money mule” scams, where an innocent victim is recruited to launder money for a criminal organization.
“The impact of job scams could be devastating and is probably going significantly underreported by victims,” ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe wrote within the report.
“Many job scam victims report that they’ve lost their life savings in addition to money they’ve borrowed from family and friends.
“Along with these financial impacts, victims incur additional harm through the loss of non-public information resulting in an increased likelihood of future scam losses and identity crime.
“The fee of a victim’s lack of trust in recruitment processes and lack of confidence of their ability to secure meaningful employment is tough to quantify.”
In 2024, 78 percent of those that provided their age when reporting a job scam were under 44, and 18.8 percent of job scam victims who lost money self-reported English as their second language compared with 7.7 percent for other scam types.
The National Anti-Scam Centre’s Job Scam Fusion Cell brought together government, law enforcement and industry to try to combat the growing issue.
The duty force, which ran for six months from September 2024, led to the referral of 836 scammer cryptocurrency wallets to digital currency exchanges for evaluation and investigation, resulting in blocking and black-listing.
Intelligence sharing led to Meta’s removal of about 29,000 accounts engaged in job scams in Australian Facebook groups, and 1850 scam enablers similar to web sites and scam job advertisements, were referred for removal.
A scam targeting work-from-home job hunters has been found to cost Australians greater than all other scam types combined.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released findings from a task force established to tackle job and employment scams – the fastest growing scam kind of 2023.
Scamwatch reports for the 2024 calendar 12 months, Australians lost $13.7 million to job and employment scams, with a median lack of $14,470.
That is 5.1 percent higher than the common loss for all other scam types combined.
Job scams – which frequently are available in the shape of fraudulent offers of employment designed to encourage victims into giving money, providing personal information, or working without spending a dime – often goal people looking for additional income, and versatile or work-from-home opportunities.
The scams were found to have the best impact on individuals with low incomes, from culturally diverse communities, people living with disabilities and international students.
The report found that fraudsters often impersonated reputable recruitment organizations similar to Seek, LinkedIn and Adecco.
Often, scammers message individuals with a job offer that features a high income, working from home and little effort.
They then attempt to accumulate a victim’s personal information or trick them into providing free labor.
One other kind of job scam is “money mule” scams, where an innocent victim is recruited to launder money for a criminal organization.
“The impact of job scams could be devastating and is probably going significantly underreported by victims,” ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe wrote within the report.
“Many job scam victims report that they’ve lost their life savings in addition to money they’ve borrowed from family and friends.
“Along with these financial impacts, victims incur additional harm through the loss of non-public information resulting in an increased likelihood of future scam losses and identity crime.
“The fee of a victim’s lack of trust in recruitment processes and lack of confidence of their ability to secure meaningful employment is tough to quantify.”
In 2024, 78 percent of those that provided their age when reporting a job scam were under 44, and 18.8 percent of job scam victims who lost money self-reported English as their second language compared with 7.7 percent for other scam types.
The National Anti-Scam Centre’s Job Scam Fusion Cell brought together government, law enforcement and industry to try to combat the growing issue.
The duty force, which ran for six months from September 2024, led to the referral of 836 scammer cryptocurrency wallets to digital currency exchanges for evaluation and investigation, resulting in blocking and black-listing.
Intelligence sharing led to Meta’s removal of about 29,000 accounts engaged in job scams in Australian Facebook groups, and 1850 scam enablers similar to web sites and scam job advertisements, were referred for removal.
