“Earn $800 a day liking videos from home”

A student looking for part-time work was paid for simple online tasks, until the tasks started costing money.

What happened

Jordan, 20, had applied to a few remote jobs when a recruiter messaged on WhatsApp. The job: rate products and like videos to “boost” them, 30 minutes a day, $80 to $800 a day.

Day one went well. Jordan completed 40 tasks on a slick website and was paid $55 in crypto. On day three, a “combination task” put the account into negative balance. To finish it and unlock earnings, Jordan needed to deposit $250. Then $600. Then $900.

“They paid me first. That’s what I couldn’t get past.”

The scam

This is a task scam, one of the fastest-growing job scams. The first small payouts are real, to build trust. The negative balance is invented, and every deposit is followed by a bigger “combination task”.

Real employers don’t recruit by unsolicited WhatsApp messages, and they never ask you to pay to work.

What Jordan did

After the third deposit, Jordan posted about it in a student group chat. Two classmates had been targeted by the same site. Jordan stopped paying, reported it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to the university, and warned the group.

Red flags

• A job offer you didn’t apply for, by text or WhatsApp.
• High pay for very simple online tasks.
• Being paid in crypto.
• Having to deposit money to unlock your earnings.

How to protect yourself

• If you have to pay to get paid, it’s not a job.
• Look up the company yourself and apply through its official site.
• Be wary of recruiters who only use messaging apps and won’t do a video call.
• Report job scams to the FTC, and warn friends who are job hunting too.

Every story is a composite of commonly reported cases. Names, places, amounts and links are changed.