Last week I reopened the Facebook app after a long time. Browsing on the social network I came across a post that caught my attention: a certain Michell posted a job offer from home for Amazon thanks to which you could earn up to 300 pounds a week.
Although the post was in Spanish, one of the requirements for the ad was that you live in England, Scotland or Wales. Why did it catch my attention? First, because the offer seems tempting: 300 dollars to write product reviews? However, I soon realized that the offer was probably not really an offer but a hoax.
Wanting to know more about this possible scam, I wrote to Michell to let him know that I was interested in the job offer.
Few minutes passed and Michell replied with a message saying that he was going to send me an email with a link that I should click on. There I would find a list of companies in which I had to register with an email and a new password. That would be when I would start receiving forms with products and services to respond to.
According to Michell, the page showed different payment methods that I could choose from and the money, after filling out the forms, would accumulate. If he devoted 2 or 3 hours a day, he could accumulate between 100 and 300 pounds (approximately between 120 and 360 $).
After all this information, I had many questions. However, the first was essential: which company was going to hire me or, if it was freelance work, which company should I invoice?
Obviously, once I sent the questions through the Facebook Messenger chat, I was seen forever. Michael has disappeared.
I admit that I tried again a few days later with a “hello”. I needed more information to be able to write this article! But nothing, Michell did not answer and, not only that: Michell deleted the message with his job offer.
How to tell if this Amazon job posting is a scam
I can never know for sure if Michell’s intentions (in case Michell was his real name) were good or bad. However, there are several reasons that seemed to indicate from the start that this announcement was not clean wheat.
The first of these was the fact that the the ad will be posted on Facebook, in a group dedicated to Spaniards living in London. Why would a particular person want to post an announcement to a group of strangers from their Facebook profile?
Amazon has a dedicated portal exclusively for advertising their job openings. This portal is Amazon.jobsthis is where you can find the company’s official job vacancies.
Now let’s imagine that the answer to this question is that Michell is a nice person who wants to share this job opportunity with other Spanish speakers living in England, Wales or Scotland.
This is where we find the second indicator that makes us think that your offer is a scam: the profile from which you posted the ad is a profile with very little information. He hardly has any posts, photos or information that can let us know if he is a real person or not.
The third reason that will lead you to mistrust is the fact that everything is so simple. With just one message of interest, Michell was already inviting you to work. If it’s a job with a serious company, you’ll be asked at least a few more questions before you can start making money.
Another reason that set off my alarms is that I was asked to click on a link. A link, from a stranger, through which you are promised money. That doesn’t seem very real, does it?
Ultimately, Michel did not answer any of my questions. In fact, as soon as I asked if he could give me more information about the company he was hiring, he disappeared. He deleted the job ad and I was seen permanently.
So, in short, a good job opportunity won’t just show up in your Facebook News Feed; It will be something that you will have to look for a little more and, above all, that you will find on the official sites.
We have a guide in which we tell you how to avoid online scams that, surely, in this case, it is very good that you take it into account.
Amazon job posting scams that have been reported
As soon as I had this short conversation with Michell, I started to investigate this type of scam and, as expected, I ended up coming across examples of very similar scams that could make me decide that the offer I saw on Facebook was actually a scam too.
On the site of Run with my power published an article recounting an Amazon scam very similar to working from home. This scam is started over the phone. This is how they provide you with a link in which you are asked for personal data, including bank details. The rest is easy to guess, right?
This scam has also spread to WhatsApp, as reported by the online publication mediotiempo. This message would lead you to be a victim of phishing if you end up falling into the trap.
On the other hand, on the site android apps, there are several common scams reported on Amazon that you might be interested in checking out. One of them refers to fake job offers which again confirm that cyber criminals will try to obtain banking or personal information to take advantage.
The fake job posting on Amazon
While investigating, I found the following news: “UK justice overturns network of fake reviews on Amazon that involved Mallorcan company”. What if Michell worked for a similar company? In this case, we would not be the scammers, but we would be participating in fraudulent work.
The news is about two companies based in Europe who have committed to paying several people to write fake reviews of products purchased on Amazon. In this way, the scam companies could sell to other companies with stores on Amazon the possibility of their products gaining popularity through these fake reviews.
This is something that would affect Amazon primarily as it means their review system is unreliable and also Amazon. potential buyers and buyers on Amazonwhich could influence their buying decisions into fake reviews of the products they want to buy.
The date of this news is February 2022 and Michell replied to my message in March 2022, so he was surely not part of either of the two companies that are on trial in the UK justice. However, could it be a similar company?
The thing is, when faced with this kind of offers to earn money too easily from home without any kind of selection process, they tend to be misleading. Better to avoid them!
You will also like to read our this guide in which we explain how to avoid being scammed by fake reviews on Amazon.
