An employment scam occurs when fraudulent entities target and exploit job seekers by offering them false promises of lucrative employment opportunities. These scams typically involve recruitment attempts through unsolicited emails, text messages, online classified ads, job posting websites, or personal messages on social media.

Although various forms of employment scams exist, they often follow a similar pattern:

1. You receive a job offer without undergoing an in-person or virtual interview.
2. You are instructed to receive money, either through a cheque or by depositing it into your bank account.
3. You are then asked to withdraw a portion of that money, with the remaining amount promised as your compensation or commission.
4. The scammers instruct you to convert the withdrawn amount into cryptocurrency and send it back to them via a provided crypto wallet address.
5. The money you initially received is likely sourced from a compromised bank account or obtained through illicit activities. Once you send the cryptocurrency to the scammers, your bank will likely notify you that the deposited money was fraudulent and will be deducted from your account. As a result, you will suffer a financial loss since you have already sent the crypto to the scammers.