How to spot a fake job website

Fake recruiters copy a known company name, send an offer quickly, and then ask for a registration fee, a laptop fee, or a refundable deposit. The website can look finished. The fee is the trap.

Signs the listing is not a job

• You must pay before you start: registration, training, uniform, laptop, or a deposit they promise to return.

• The interview happens only on Telegram or WhatsApp. The mail comes from Gmail, not from the company’s own domain.

• The offer letter arrives before anyone has spoken to you, or the salary is far above the usual pay for that work.

• They ask for Aadhaar, PAN, or a bank OTP as the first step, or they send an app to install so they can “verify documents.”

• The site address is close to a real company, with an extra word, a hyphen, or a different ending.

Check it before you send anything

1. Type the company’s website yourself. Look for the same job there. Call the phone number printed on that site, not the number in the message.

2. Search the company name together with the word scam, and read recent posts from people who were asked to pay.

3. The National Career Service at ncs.gov.in is a government portal. A recruiter who will not use a company address, and only sends a different link, is not that portal.

4. Stop if they ask you to install AnyDesk, QuickSupport, or a remote-access app for the interview.

If you already paid or shared documents, call your bank from the number on your card, then call 1930. Tell the bank which account received the money. Watch the email and phone tied to those documents for password resets you did not request.

If money has already left your account, call 1930 or report at cybercrime.gov.in. This page is awareness information. It does not file a complaint.