How do you identify a fake job offer?
By what it asks for. Real employers never send a check before you work, never ask you to buy gift cards or equipment through their "vendor", never need your bank login, and never hire you to receive packages or move money through your own account. Those last two are worse than theft of your money: they are how job seekers get recruited as money mules and end up facing money laundering and wire fraud exposure themselves.
- The Better Business Bureau's 2020 report estimated 14 million people hit employment scams in a year, at a cost of about $2 billion.
- The fake check, the gift card errand and the equipment reimbursement are the three classic extraction plays.
- "Payment processing" and "reshipping" jobs are recruitment into laundering and stolen-goods pipelines.
- Doing the "job" can be charged: laundering $2,500 or more is already a felony under Texas Penal Code 34.02.
- If you moved money or goods for a fake employer, stop, keep everything, and talk to a lawyer before you talk to investigators.
Most articles about job scams end at losing money. This one continues to the part a criminal defense lawyer sees: the applicants who did the work, moved the funds or reshipped the boxes, and then heard from a detective. Peter M. Barrett has defended fraud and laundering cases in state and federal court since 1994, with more than 150 jury trials. See our federal crime defense page.
The red flags, in one table
| What they do | What it really is | The tell |
|---|---|---|
| Offer after a five minute chat interview | Volume harvesting of applicants | No real employer hires without verifying you |
| Send a check before any work | Fake check float: you spend or forward it, it bounces days later | Banks credit deposits before checks clear; the scam lives in that gap |
| "Buy equipment from our supplier, we reimburse" | The supplier is them; the reimbursement never comes | Real employers ship equipment, they do not collect for it |
| Ask for bank logins or an ID photo "for payroll" | Identity theft harvesting | Payroll needs a routing number, never a password |
| "Payment processing": receive transfers, forward them on | Money mule recruitment for laundering | No legitimate business routes revenue through an employee's personal account |
| "Reshipping": receive packages, relabel, send abroad | Moving goods bought with stolen cards | Same logic; warehouses exist, your living room is not one |
The mule trap: when the victim becomes the defendant
The two highlighted rows are the ones that generate criminal cases. Money that arrives in your account from fraud and leaves on your instructions is laundering conduct, and packages of card-fraud goods relabelled in your kitchen are the logistics layer of an interstate theft scheme. Under Tex. Penal Code §34.02, knowingly handling the proceeds of criminal activity is a state jail felony from $2,500, a third degree felony from $30,000, and climbs with the amount. Federally, each transfer is a wire under 18 U.S.C. §1343, and mule networks are charged as conspiracies.
The State and the government must prove knowledge. That is the entire fight, and it is very fightable: a genuine job seeker with an application trail, a resume sent to a posting, and "training materials" from the scammer looks exactly like what they are, a person who was deceived. What destroys that defense is what people do after the first red flag: continuing after a bank freezes an account, opening new accounts when asked, or lying to investigators out of fear. The conduct after suspicion is what juries read as knowledge.
If you are inside one of these, in order
- Stop the activity. No more transfers, no more packages, whatever the "employer" threatens.
- Preserve everything. The posting, emails, chats, "onboarding" documents, shipping labels, bank records. The paper trail that recruited you is the evidence of your good faith.
- Do not spend what arrived. Money still in the account can go back, and returning it well documented is worth more than any explanation.
- Tell your bank, in writing. A prompt fraud report from you, before any freeze or inquiry, is powerful evidence of which side of this you were on.
- Get counsel before any interview. Investigators who call mules already have the wire records. The interview exists to establish the knowledge element. Read your right to remain silent first, then have a lawyer make the contact.
Thirty seconds of checking that defeats most of them
- Search the company name with the word scam, and find the company's real careers page. Scammers impersonate real firms with lookalike domains one letter off.
- Call the company's published number, not the one in the email, and ask for the recruiter by name.
- Look at the email domain: real recruiters do not send offers from free webmail.
- Treat any request to pay anything, ever, as the end of the conversation.
Common questions
Can I go to jail for a job that turned out to be a scam?
Only if the government proves you knew or came to know what the money or goods were. Handling fraud proceeds is chargeable under Texas Penal Code 34.02 and the federal wire fraud and laundering statutes, but knowledge is the required element, and a documented good-faith application is a real defense. The danger zone is continuing after the warning signs.
The check they sent me bounced after I forwarded money. Am I liable?
The bank will hold you responsible for the deposited item, which is a civil debt. Whether anything criminal attaches depends on what you knew. Report it to the bank immediately and keep every message from the scammer; the speed and completeness of your own report matters.
A detective called about packages delivered to my house. Should I explain?
Not alone. Reshipping investigations start from the parcels, and the interview is where the knowledge element gets built. Decline politely, then have a lawyer contact the investigator with your documentation. The same evidence delivered through counsel protects you; delivered in a recorded interview, it gets mined for inconsistencies.
How big is the job scam problem really?
The Better Business Bureau's 2020 study put it at roughly 14 million victims a year and about $2 billion in direct losses, and remote-first hiring has only widened the surface since. The scale matters legally too: task forces run mule cases in batches, so charges can arrive long after the "job" ended.
What makes a job offer legally too good to be true?
Pay far above market for no verifiable skill, hired without verification, and any flow of money or goods through your personal accounts or address. That last feature is not a job description. It is the definition of a mule.
The law this article describes, at the source.
This article is general legal information about Texas and federal law, not legal advice about your case. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change, so confirm the current rule with a licensed criminal defense attorney about your specific facts. Request a free, confidential case review.