Job Application Text Scam: What Montanans Need to Know

This is your (what seems like) weekly PSA about a scam that's circulating, and I just got a text from one of the scammers.

Lookout for Text Scams: Temu Job Offer

The scam looks like a job offer to work at Temu (and if you want to unpack whether Temu itself is a scam, you can do that here). The text says that they've been referred by a recruitment agency that recommended you based on our background and resume.

Here's the first red flag: Recruitment agencies don't usually work this way. If the text said they were from the agency itself, that might have been more believable (but not by much). Recruitment agencies work on behalf of hiring companies, and the recruiters usually handle the whole hiring process. They most likely wouldn't pass on your qualifications until further in the hiring process.

The next red flag: They offer part-time or full-time, but say you're "allowed" to work 60 to 90 minutes a day. If you work or have ever worked a full-time job, you know that the math doesn't add up. And that's what is at the core of this kind of scam.

Task Scams

This kind of scam is known as a "Task" scam and it's described in this video from the Mango School, a YouTube channel dedicated to educating people about cybersecurity.

The idea is that you sign up for a website or app to complete the tasks but there's a limited number of tasks. That's probably why they say they "allow you" to work 60 - 90 minutes per day. Then, if you pay a fee to subscribe to the site or app, you can get more tasks, but that's when the scammer will collect your information.

An Automoderator and several users corroborated this on a Reddit thread from a few months ago.

The Temu website addresses scam activity and says that it is a scam if you receive an email that doesn't end in temu.com, temuemail.com, emuofficial.com, or temufavor.com. Even though I received the offer as a text, the text came from a Gmail address, not one of the domains listed above.

What to Do

It's pretty easy to prevent this scam. Delete the text, or delete and report it as junk for good measure.

For a heads-up on other scams to look out for, check out the domestic area codes that might be used to scam you.