How to spot a fake job offer before it costs you money

Recruitment fraud is a volume business. The people running it are not tailoring an approach to you — they are sending the same message to thousands, and the message follows patterns you can learn in five minutes. Here are the ones that matter.

1. Money moving in the wrong direction

This is the whole scam, and every other signal is decoration around it. A real employer pays you. A real government recruitment charges an application fee — but that fee is paid on the recruiting body's own website, it is stated in the public notification, it is usually between ₹0 and ₹1,000, and nobody phones you about it.

Anything else is fraud: a registration fee, a security deposit, a training or "onboarding kit" charge, a fee for a medical test payable to an individual, a payment for a "confirmed seat". Whatever the reason offered, if money is going from you to them before you have worked a day, stop.

2. An offer for a job you never applied for

Nobody hires a stranger they have not interviewed. If an offer letter arrives for a role you did not apply to, someone bought a leaked database of candidates and is working through it. The letter will look convincing — logos are easy to copy.

3. The email address does not belong to the company

Look at what comes after the @. Genuine correspondence from a company comes from that company's domain. A recruiter for a large bank writing from a free Gmail or Outlook address is not a recruiter for that bank. Watch for near-misses too — an extra letter, a hyphen, or .co where the real one is .com.

4. Pressure and a deadline

"The seat is reserved for two hours." "Pay today or it goes to the next candidate." Urgency exists to stop you checking, which is the only thing that would save you. Real recruitment moves slowly and its deadlines are published weeks ahead in a document anybody can read.

5. The interview is a chat app

A short screening call is normal. An entire hiring process conducted over WhatsApp or Telegram, ending in a payment request, is not. Neither is an "interview" that never asks a question about the work.

6. It cannot be found on the official website

This is the check that settles it. Every government recruitment is announced on the recruiting body's own website, and every large employer lists open roles on its own careers page. Open the official site yourself — type the address, do not follow the link you were sent — and look for the notification. If it is not there, it does not exist.

If you have already paid

You are not the first and it is worth acting the same day.

• Stop paying. There is always a second fee, and a third.
• Report it on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in, or call the cybercrime helpline on 1930. Reporting a financial fraud within the first few hours gives the best chance of the transfer being held.
• Tell your bank immediately and ask them to raise a dispute on the transaction.
• Keep everything — screenshots, the offer letter, UPI reference numbers, the phone number. A complaint with evidence goes further than one without.

How this site works, for the avoidance of doubt

Reading listings here is free. We never ask candidates for money at any stage, we do not collect your application, and we do not phone people about jobs. Every listing links to the official source so you can do the check in signal six yourself. If anyone claims to be from this site and asks you to pay, they are lying — please tell us.