Why Do So Many People Fall For Remote Work Scams?

Guard your career against the hidden traps of the remote work world—our latest episode is your guide to identifying and sidestepping scams that can sadly trip up even the savviest of jobseekers. 

With the wisdom of the late behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman lighting our path, we explore the psychology that make us extra susceptible to deception in the digital space By equipping yourself with the knowledge from this discussion, you can sail the waters of remote employment with confidence, keeping your professional voyage scam-free.

Imagine meeting a colleague in person after years of online collaboration, only to realize they are entirely different from the digital persona you've been interacting with. This episode peels back the layers of online identity, exploring how easily our brains fill in gaps and create rich narratives around profiles we encounter on the web. Scammers leverage this psychological loophole, crafting facades that lure even the most discerning among us into their traps. We share candid personal encounters to illustrate the need for a healthy skepticism and a sharper eye when engaging with remote work opportunities.

Wrapping up, we underscore the vital role of community in fortifying the world of remote work against fraud. We're not just talking about spotting red flags—we're about empowering each other through shared insights and resources. As we champion Remote Work Europe's commitment to support and enable a secure remote working environment, we urge you to join us in this movement. Listen, learn, and lend a hand to others by circulating this important conversation. Together, we can build a stronger, scam-resistant remote work community.

Chapters

• 0:05 The Truth About Remote Work Scams
• 11:19 Filling Gaps in Online Personas
• 23:02 Recognizing Urgency in Scams
• 28:14 Remote Work Scams
• 33:29 Supporting Remote Work Community Empowerment

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

You're listening to the Remote Work Europe podcast, the show formerly branded as the Future is Freelance. The name has changed, but our values have not. We're still the podcast for solopreneurs, digital nomads and slowmads, consultants, remote workers, e-residents and everyone living a life without traditional boundaries. We're here for people who defy categorization, those who make a living and a life their own way in Europe and beyond. Fortnightly, on Fridays, we're serving up expert tips, inspired insights and stories from the frontiers of freelancing and the remote work revolution to help you achieve success with your borderless business and liberated lifestyle, whatever success means to you as you live life on your borderless business and liberated lifestyle, whatever success means to you as you live life on your own terms. So today on the Remote Work Europe podcast, we're going to talk about something that I don't think gets talked about enough in this space, but it's been bugging me for a long time, especially because of the things that come up in our social media communities, particularly our Facebook groups. We're going to talk about remote work scams and why so many people fall for them. I don't think enough people are talking about this in the remote space generally, and I think that's because the way that we are very much community driven and grassroots driven. We are hearing these stories, Whereas I think the temptation is with podcasts certainly and I know we do this is to talk to people who have already made the leap, and we often bring you case studies and interviews with people who have created that successful remote work lifestyle for themselves. We know that you want to hear about that and it's inspirational, but I'm concerned that we're often part of that deception of abundance that this is easy, that there's something you can just switch into and achieve that remote lifestyle, whereas actually we don't talk enough about the fact that it's difficult and the fact that it's challenging. So we can become part of that FOMO if we're not very careful in remote work Europe, and we don't want to do that. We don't want to be part of that veil of abundance that there's all these remote jobs out there. There are remote jobs out there. There are remote workers out there. There are people who've built fantastic businesses that have given them the lifestyle unlock that they want, but we don't want to imply that it's everybody, or it's easy or you're the only one who hasn't managed to do this yet, because I think that definitely feeds in to the risks that we see and to the number of people who are falling victim to online scams. So that's why we try to create this kind of messaging for you that's at the edge of this and tries to bridge the gap.

Speaker 1: 2:46

We know we come across it every day in our Facebook groups that there are still people confused about what remote work even is. They think it's some kind of specific industry or job that they can get, and they think that remote work jobs are won and lost in the same way as you know you might get a casual day's labor. We see people posting in our hire me threads that they're just looking for some kind of online side hustle or something they can do in the evenings or whatever. Anybody's going to offer you a job for something that you might see as not committed or just a part-time thing. It might well be a side hustle in your mind, but if that's the message you're putting out there, or if somebody posts in one of our Facebook groups that they've recently landed a remote job and their question is about compliance or employers, a record or taxation or something, I guarantee there'll be at least one comment from people saying what is the job? How do I do that? As though it's something that they're hiring by the day for, like on a building site, and you know it's a case of you can get hired off a Facebook comment rather than it being a specific professional career decision that they've worked towards. And you know there's no reason to assume that anybody else be eligible to do that job anyway if they hadn't followed that particular trajectory. So it's difficult and we've talked about this before. We had an episode last year, season four, episode 10, on remote red herrings, and I do urge you to have a listen to that one, if you need to just remind yourself how important remote jobs are, how difficult they are to get and how brilliant it is when you do find the one that aligns for you.

Speaker 1: 4:17

And today I want to look at the idea of scams and why people end up falling for those scams in a bit more detail, because we want to be part of that story in protecting people, and in fact we're going to publish this audio as part of a resource bundle we've put together specifically to help people protect themselves from scams, because all of this is about knowledge, it's about awareness, it's about taking the time to spot the scams, to educate yourself, because once you know what people are doing what's in it for them, how they want to exploit you and rip you off, then that empowers you, whether it's already happened to you or you're entering this world of remote work and you want to avoid the risks in the first place. Knowledge is power, so we're all about the knowledge here at Remote Work Europe, and part of the reason I want to talk about the why today is that at the time of recording, at the end of March 2024, we've just lost the industry great Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winning cognitive psychologist who first applied behavioural understandings to economics to explain why we do things which aren't in our best interest as rational people so often Now. His amazing book Thinking First and Slow is an extremely accessible read if you want to dive into this story of behavioural economics. But it's definitely been an influence on my thinking about this space and about why scams develop, and I feel it explains so much, because, I mean, he created the entire field of behavioural economics and helped us unpack those cognitive biases which really help understand why people fall for scams.

Speaker 1: 5:50

But before we unpack that scam further, I want to point out that these biases still exist even when you're aware of them. In many cases, they are unconscious biases anyway, and just because you become conscious of them, that is the first step, most definitely, to making them less unexamined and to starting to overcome them. But it's a bit like when you see a visual optical illusion and your rational mind definitely knows that the line with the arrows pointing inwards is the same length as the line with the arrows pointing outwards, and you know this and you've checked it with a ruler. But even so, your brain is in conflict, because your rational, hardworking, what Kahneman would have called your system two part of your brain really knows that the lines are the same length, but your system one brain is the one that actually decides and tells you all the time but yeah, clearly that one's longer and that one's shorter. So I just want you to be aware of that, even when you've listened to this podcast, even if you take the time to go through all the resources that we publish that this is part of, to help you protect yourself against remote work scams.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Knowledge is power. You will increase your awareness, but it's not like a vaccination against it happening to you. You have to keep this stuff somehow consciously in your mind and make a conscious effort to understand why it is that people fall for this stuff, and one of the things I talked about in the video in this resource pack is that I feel that remote work scams online are often very similar to dating scams. Now these have had a lot more publicity lately. There's been some great documentaries about how people get sucked in to what appears, on the face of it, to be a mutually fulfilling relationship with somebody they never actually meet. But they get to know and it happens over time. They build up this knowledge and awareness of each other and the person invests greatly in an emotional way in that relationship that they believe they're part of. They end up often tragically investing in a big time financial way, because at some point something comes up that they suddenly need to send money to this person, and that's when the whole thing falls apart and they realize they've been scammed.

Speaker 1: 7:59

And I do feel that the way that remote work scams operate I'm sure it's the same people applying the same thinking, because it's about wish fulfillment, because remote workers and digital nomads they might see people turning up who are bringing their work with them and enjoying a lifestyle which they can't aspire to because they have to go, maybe even service things for these people and support them in having that lifestyle, but they can't access it themselves. So it's a wish fulfillment thing. We all dream of true love. We all dream of that amazing job that's going to give us everything we want in life. So I think that wish fulfillment element is very much part of the common ground between dating and remote work scams, because we're humans and we have a cognitive bias towards believing the best. I mean goodness, we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning if we didn't believe that hopefully the next day was going to be better, whatever's happened to us in the past. Once we stop having that mindset, then we're at risk of depression and worse, because we have to keep it going.

Speaker 1: 9:12

And in dating it's that search for companionship and the perfect relationship, and in remote work it's the presume of the dream job and the lifestyle that goes with it. So it's that desire that scammers can exploit in both cases by presenting a vision of an ideal and actually by building that relationship and that conversation, they can really tap into what that very unique personal vision is for each person, something that's going to satisfy those deep-seated wishes, whether it's job security, whether it's the freedom to travel, whether it's the flexibility to do the work whenever you want. All of these things might seem like they're going to be an equal weight to different people, but they're not, and the scammers will dig deep to find out exactly what you need. And obviously in dating scams it's the same thing how could I be your perfect partner that you've been looking for all your life? Now I think that there's definitely in the whole industry of I'd like to call it an industry the business it's not even that of scamming people and ripping people off there's a perception that some of these crimes are victimless, that some people deserve it.

Speaker 1: 10:11

There was a wonderful BBC comedy drama series earlier in the century called Hustle, and one of their principles was that you could never con an honest person because the only people that would ever fall for it were people who were kind of on the take anyway and looking for a quick buck, looking to cheat the system, and it was a good drama. I enjoyed it, but I remember this fundamentally jarring with me because I just don't believe it and so many people are innocent victims. It's of course there are people who might see the opportunity to make a quick buck, who might see the opportunity to win something in an unfair way to get an advantage over other people. But that doesn't make them dishonest. And the fact is, anybody can be conned if they have a desire gap between what they've got now and what they seek in life. And it doesn't mean that they're somehow asking for it or open to it. We all, you know there are very few of us that don't have desires in our life that don't see things that could be better. It doesn't make us dishonest if somebody offers us what appears to be an honest opportunity to go for that. That doesn't make us a bad person, because we all have those gaps between our reality and what we want to achieve.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Now, one thing about those gaps is in the online space, it's very easy to hide those gaps. We can create almost a shadow, a projection. The online environment is so ripe for this kind of ambiguity. Just think about it. If you're in a social space, online, you've probably created some kind of avatar or a profile picture. You've chosen a username, you've chosen what to put into that. Of course, it's different somewhere like LinkedIn that has a verified identity and it's your professional self. But in forums and things like that, even in sort of metaverse, 3d worlds, where we're designing what we want to look like, what we want to project to other people, not because we're dishonest, but because we have that choice. But what we end up with in every situation online is something that's actually. It's like a projection, it's like a shadow. We think it's the real thing and this again is going back to Kahneman's behavioral economics Our minds fill in the gaps.

Speaker 1: 12:16

If you see a drawing of a three dimensional shape on a piece of paper, your brain tells you that that is a cube or that is a sphere because of the way it's shaded. You know it's a flat piece of paper with an image on it or a screen, but your brain wants to make that solid because it knows the shots. It knows what that shadow on the edge of the sphere signifies, that that's a solid object and your mind is very happy to see it as a solid object. Or to see the perspective in a drawing like an architectural projection or so on. We're good at that and this is how it works with online personalities and online characters. We look at that username, we look at the photo, we look at the profile, which may be richly developed or it might not and our brains fill in the gaps. Now this happens in exactly the same way, whether it's a dating profile or a recruiter who's just hit you up on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1: 13:08

Our brains take the gaps and we fill it in. We don't do it. It's not a deliberate or a conscious thing, but we're used to real whole humans, so we use our imagination to fill in the blanks, and, of course, the scammers do what they can to create that believable reality anyway. They're really good at providing just enough information to make their lies seem plausible, without offering any concrete details that you could really double check and call them out on. And so it taps into the way our imaginations work to fill in those gaps. Just because of that vagueness, we complete the picture.

Speaker 1: 13:41

I remember reading an interview once with a romance novelist writer, and she said she never describes either the heroine, who is her target reader, or the love interest, who is the mysterious man, in too much physical detail. She uses quite vague terms because she thinks it's far better if people fill in the gaps themselves with their imagination, because every one of her target readers wants to be the heroine and so she will put some of herself into her perception of that character. And, of course, her perfect love interest is something that she's probably got a very clear idea about what they look like. So she doesn't describe the hero too much either. She'd much rather just give some vague generalisms so that the reader can project themselves into the story and make it real. And this is exactly the same way it works with the scam recruiters.

Speaker 1: 14:28

Of course, they will use an online profile which they will create, or they might steal one. Incidentally, if they find a profile that looks developed and used, but maybe it hasn't got great password security on or that password's been in a breach, there's no two-factor authentication on it, it's actually rather than take the time to build up a profile that somebody could look at and think well, that's clearly been established a while and they do work in this industry, or they do exist. It's much better just to steal one. So it's really important. Just even if you don't want to use social media anymore, lock down your profile, get it deleted, secure it so that nobody else can steal it. And this is all because these things can be used to create that shadow self and to have the victim do the rest of the work in their own imaginations. And, incidentally, it's worth pointing out that this can happen in any online relationship, and that includes perfectly legitimate remote work and remote teams.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Generally speaking, if you're working with people online, hopefully I mean obviously they're real and you may well have met them face to face at some kind of offsite or team reunion. You may well have video calls with them, which is very good for fleshing out that single dimension that we tend to get. But what can happen with bigger teams is that we don't have that with everybody. And you might be in conversation with somebody, might be, basically, you might have a very deep and professional relationship with somebody, based essentially on a single profile picture and lots of texting, whether that's in Microsoft Teams or in a Slack team and so on, and what can happen is from that you feel you build up a very deep knowledge of that person. You feel that you know them. Obviously you've got each other's that person. You feel that you know them. Obviously you've got each other's back professionally, you've worked together, you've created something, you've shared accomplishments.

Speaker 1: 16:08

But what can happen is that we don't really know that person. We've seen only a very narrow aspect of them that they've chosen to share, and it's not until something happens that we might meet them in real life and something about them really surprises us because we didn't know it. I remember meeting a colleague once who turned out to be very, very much taller than me, which isn't hard Most people are taller than me but it was one of those things I could feel myself like don't stare, don't say anything. This must be something that she gets all the time. And she actually stepped into the office and said yes, I know. It's really surprising because obviously on a webcam I didn't really come across and this was somebody I'd worked with for years and the first time we met all I could do was try to sort of not sound like a complete idiot going oh my God, you're tall, which would have been really helpful, unhelpful and stupid. But it was one of those things that it completely jarred with the picture that I painted in my mind.

Speaker 1: 16:59

Other things that have come up on remote teams that I've worked with is you don't really know somebody until there's a conflict or a disagreement. That can be really dangerous because if we agree all the time over the work you know again, it all feeds into that picture. We know this person, we've got so much in common, we do great work together and actually it's not until the first day that we actually have a disagreement over something We've never practiced. We don't know how that person disagrees, we don't know how they deal with feedback, we don't know how they deal with criticism, so this isn't really about scams, but I just wanted to go off on this tangent to remind you that this is not a phenomenon limited to deception. This is something that's really common to the online environment, and the only way around it is to use the tools that we've got, to have the video chats, to have the conversations without agenda, to network, to really try to get to know each other and to meet up with each other in that physical world whenever we do get the chance.

Speaker 1: 17:53

I'm not going to call it in real life. Online life is real life. What we do online is just as real as anything else, but it can lack a multi-dimensionality that a face-to-face meetup can provide. So bear that in mind in all your online interactions. Your online colleagues are certainly not necessarily out to scam you, but if you don't know somebody face-to-face, then there could be other stuff going on, and when you meet somebody online, you don't know anything about that person, and if they've got an agenda that they're not sharing with you because they want to exploit you, then you're at a considerable disadvantage.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Now, one thing that they would definitely do is invest time and emotion in building that relationship. At least you're going to invest emotion, they'll invest time. But actually, if they're a bot or if they're somebody running 20 different chats at the same time, they're not nearly investing as much as you are. They have to invest that time with you in order to build trust. If they're going to rip you off in a dating scam or they're going to rip you off in a remote work scam, they have to make you feel that that trust has been built over time. So there will be regular communication. They will seem to invest.

Speaker 1: 19:02

They will ask you for small things. That's a cognitive bias that Kahneman identified. If you get asked to do one small thing and you agree to do it, you're much more likely to respond positively. The next time the ask's a little bit bigger. The more time and emotion you invest, the harder it is to accept the possibility that something might not be right here. Just as if you've invested time in a relationship say, you've got married, you've got kids together or something like that it's much, much harder to end it than if it's somebody you've just met. Nope, bad vibe, don't want to see you again. It's much, much harder, and this is it's a cognitive bias called the sunk cost fallacy that we don't want to give up something that we feel that we've made some effort to acquire. We have much more fear of losing something. We rate the fear of losing something much more highly than the opportunity of gaining something new. So if you've done all that work to suppress that intuition, as you've built this trust, as you've built this relationship with somebody, you might literally have done work.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Incidentally, because a lot of these remote work scams, they will have you do a thing. Now, whether that thing is something you ever should have believed you were going to get paid for, because it's something like copying text from a PDF into a Word document or something. I mean, this is the stuff that people bring to us, that they've fallen for. So it happens, and this is the stuff we're deleting out of the Facebook groups all the time. People create work so that you will invest your time and your effort in this relationship and it's work that anybody can do, and so maybe you see it and you think, wow, I could literally do this by copying and pasting and this sucker's going to pay me $3,000 for it. So I must be the smart one in this side of things. So you invest that time, you do the work, you hand it over and all of that helps to build that trust, that relationship where they've given you work to do. So there must be something real here.

Speaker 1: 20:52

And of course then if you have that intuition bubbling away that maybe you shouldn't be giving them a copy of your ID just so they can pay you, I mean, why do they need that? But they say that's the only way you can get paid and obviously you've done this work. Now that is a sunk cost and you're afraid of losing that. You've already spent the money in your mind, maybe several times over, because they told you there's loads more in this work out there. So it lowers your guard. You feel that you've invested your time, your effort already. So to give your bank details to this person just so that they can send a test payment before they set you up, to let them remote in, so they can install the special wallet on your laptop, so that they can pay you their special token currency. All of that.

Speaker 1: 21:33

It might feel a bit off, but you've done all this work, you've been talking to them for weeks. They seem really nice. They've actually got the same pets as you, or their kids have the same name. Who'd have thought this brings you so much closer together? So what can happen is you suppress that intuitive feeling that says there's something really wrong here. You're finally going to get paid. They're really excited that they're finally going to pay you. So, of course, you hand over those details and then they disappear and you never see them again.

Speaker 1: 21:59

And this is exactly the parallel to the love rat scam, where that relationship has been built. Maybe they're going to come and actually see you face to face and take this relationship to a whole new level. They just need the money for the airfare, or they have a crisis where they need medical treatment or someone they love or their visa or whatever. There's some reason why you're going to have to send the money at some point, and that inequality of the relationship is something they've been working to cultivate all the time. So it feels like what might be a small deal to you is a huge life-changing deal for them, and this is exactly how the remote work thing works. But the other way around, they've got loads of work to allocate. You're doing a great job with that copying and pasting and typing stuff out, and you're copying data into a table or whatever it is. They've believed, they've convinced you to believe you're going to get paid for, so they trade on that and the fact that it's a big deal to you and it's not to them. All you've got to do is just send them a copy of your ID and your home address and then they'll ship the laptop to you immediately, so you end up handing over this information to this person. You don't really know who or where they are.

Speaker 1: 23:02

Another way that you might be pressured to do this is because they create a sense of urgency. Now, scams are emotional. People get suckered into them. You might be desperate for the money for a start, because that's the only reason that people are likely to fall for this anyway. You might well have communicated that desperation very publicly when people go into remote work groups that aren't run by Remote Work Europe and say look, I'm desperate for anything, please. There are heartbreaking stories that I see posted in public groups and it just breaks my heart because I know exactly what their DMs are going to fill up with. And if you've communicated that desperation, you're on the list. You're top of the target for these scammers to work on and when they come to you, they'll work with that sense of urgency. They'll create deadlines. They'll create crises.

Speaker 1: 23:50

If you don't get your pay in, you're going to miss the cycle. It might be another month before you, just as the daters have an emergency requiring financial help and they need it now. You don't have time to think about it. When it comes to the online work scams, the offer is going to expire. If you don't act on it immediately, you'll miss the boat. You won't get recruited, somebody else will get get that opportunity and you'll spend your lifetime knowing that you've missed out and that sense of urgency.

Speaker 1: 24:15

It heightens the emotion in you. It means you're more likely to respond with the more primitive, emotional side of your brain rather than the logical, rational one that's saying well, hang on a minute. What's so urgent about data entry? All of a sudden and might give you a chance to really think this through and say something's not right here. All of that is overwhelmed by fear of missing out. That fear of missing out could be a once in a lifetime opportunity and all the advantages that's going to give you to change your life and to help the people you love and it pushes you to act without your normal rational due diligence.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Remember what we were saying earlier about system one and system two thinking it's actually effortful to be rational and the reason that we deceive ourselves is that we think we're being rational and logical and instead it's the emotional thing that's ruling the rooster. We call it intuition. If we have to label it at all, if we decide we're making a decision, we might say, well, I trusted them, I liked them, but most of the time we won't even label it in that way, we'll simply be taken along with that or whatever, but most of the time we won't even label it in that way, we'll simply be taken along with that. So that's because they've spent the time building the trust and all of that time that they've spent it's gradual. They build rapport, they maintain contact.

Speaker 1: 25:24

A lot of it is designed to make you forget how the contact came along in the first place, because a really important reality check here is that anybody who's hiring for a remote job, they don't randomly hit you up on WhatsApp or through direct messages. If you are trying to get a real remote job, it's hard work. You will be chasing the recruiter to say please, have you heard anything? What do you need from me? What's going on here? They will not be chasing you. They will not be contacting you randomly and offering you a Gmail or let's go to an anonymous telegram conversation. That's just not how it works. So a part of you might know that, but then that was a while ago. Since that time they sent me a friend request.

Speaker 1: 26:10

They seem really nice. They've been flattering about my achievements and about my skills. They've got shared interests. They seem really nice. They've been flattering about my achievements and about my skills. They've got shared interests. They've got really interesting job opportunities, clearly because they're obviously living this lifestyle that I aspired to, because I can see that in their photos and things like that. So all of that creates a distance from that initial contact, which might've been a bit random, and eventually, rather than seeing that as suspicious, you see that was the best thing that ever happened to you. So it's all part of that building that relationship with you over time that gradually diffuses your normal defenses, your normal radar, your normal sense of.

Speaker 1: 26:45

So they might use the network as well. Incidentally, if you've got mutual connections with the Facebook account that they stole, then that's something that they know you'll look at oh, they know so-and-so then they must be okay. They might target you specifically because of that mutual connection and leverage that inherent trust within the social network. We're social people, I mean. That's why these networks are so big. So when you see shared friends or followers, that makes them seem more credible. It's not the fact that you necessarily are specially invested in the mutual relationship. It's just the fact that you necessarily are specially invested in the mutual relationship. It's just the fact that it exists, and possibly more than one. So, to build that trust, they might use brand names that you're very well aware of.

Speaker 1: 27:24

But if you honestly think that Amazon recruits through direct messages on WhatsApp and that their recruiters use Gmail addresses, this is all part of this thing that you're gradually being no well, you see, the problem is, the reason I'm using a Gmail is that there's an issue with our server at the moment, or the website's down, or we've been hacked. Isn't that awful? Because there are scammers out there. So, yeah, the thing is you have to get back to me on WhatsApp. That's the only way I can do it at the moment, and when all of this is combined with that emotional manipulation, the tight deadlines. It's exactly like the dating scams If I don't pay for my mother's operation today, or if you don't send me your bank details so I can pay you immediately, all these opportunities are going to vanish and these fabricated crises will just get worse, and it's up to you to take that immediate action. So these are the things that you have to look out for Now.

Speaker 1: 28:14

We have created loads of content, including a free ebook, all about what to specifically look for, what these posts look for, and the heartbreaking thing is I could share dozens of anecdotes and stories from people who've come across these scams and fallen victim to them, for people who have ended up with complete lack of trust in remote work generally because they've been involved in a scam. You see people posting I really want, I'm desperate for remote work. I really need something where I don't have to pay upfront. And you think you know that's their perception of remote work is that it's all people trying to get them to join their MLM or buy their business in a box. That's another episode that we'll come to at some point, believe me.

Speaker 1: 28:56

But there are people who've had such bad experiences of people saying I'm offering you remote work and it's anything, but Now there's a huge spectrum of scams, from the ones who they just want you to be part of their so-called business. It's not their business, but they want you to be part of their downline so that they can sell more stuff and get you to sell stuff and they get a cut of it. That's network marketing or multi-level marketing. We will do an episode on that soon, but let's just at this point remember that anybody who can recruit anybody, then they're not hiring you for your skills. They're recruiting you because you are a product to them. You're just a vessel or a vehicle. They might appear to be your best friend for a while, if that's what it takes, but the fact that you don't have to have any particular skills or experiences has got to be the biggest red flag out there, and these are the things that end up having a terrible impact on the victims socially and emotionally, because they're encouraged to exploit their own friends.

Speaker 1: 29:49

So there's that end of the scams. There's the ones which are are mainly data grabs, because a lot of people don't realize how valuable their personal data is, especially if they live in a perceived wealthy country, and they're talking about access to a US or European validated name address with a set of bank details. All of this is currency in certain markets and if people collect enough of it especially if they also connect that with some stupid quiz on Facebook where you've named your favorite food and your first pet's name and all this other kind of information which can be put together and misused in different ways. So those are the kind of data scams and they're by far the most common Getting you to pay something where we can't ship the laptop out to you until you pay us $2,000. Oh, we've sent you a check but we accidentally overpaid it by 10 times, so you have to pay us back. Oh, suddenly you're never going to get that money back.

Speaker 1: 30:43

At the most dangerous end, there are people who get suckered into doing some incredibly dangerous and illegal things as a result of these scams, and it's all because of this seduction. Truly, I really do think it's exactly aligned with the dating scams when somebody has been groomed, possibly over months, and then you find out that they've accepted this job, which means receiving packages and shipping them onwards because there's some legal issue why they need a reshipper in that particular country and that's why it's a remote job. Do you know what's in those packages? Do you know if it's even legal? I've heard of people doing this, receiving things at their house and posting them on again. They have no idea what they're actually handling in any sense and what industry they're really involved with. I've heard of other people who have been required to set up legal entities and limited companies in their own name for the person hiring them and giving them money to use and maybe they actually got paid for that but what on earth is that business entity being used for? What on earth are they legally liable for as a company owner, as a company director, for having been a part of? They've got no idea.

Speaker 1: 31:55

So these scams can go deep. They can do damage way beyond whatever it was you were promised you were going to get paid and you didn't. These are the kinds of things that can have serious legal consequences. So it's super important that you arm yourself and protect yourself with this knowledge and that you recognize these cognitive biases, the way that the scammers. They're very, very smart. They're experts in human psychology. This is a business. I mean, there are thousands of people involved in this and there are large organizations and they will pay well to the people who are good at this, who are good at extracting that money, people who could earn good money in sales or negotiations in any legitimate sphere, but find it easier to make money using those skills to rip people off. So educate yourself, shine light in these dark corners. Spread the word.

Speaker 1: 32:43

If you've become aware of a scam, you can share that confidentially with Remote Work Europe via our contact form. So that's remoteworkeuropeeu forward slash contact. You can send us an email. You can send us private messages via our Facebook page or our LinkedIn and we will expose the scam for you. We won't de-anonymize you. If you want to do that confidentially, we will support you. We will do whatever we can to help educate and empower you. We'll report it where we can if there's been a clear breach of the law, and we'd encourage you to do the same.

Speaker 1: 33:13

But the truth is, when it comes to social media, nobody cares. The platforms don't care. The only thing you might get them on is a copyright violation. If they've used a known brand inappropriately, that is it. Otherwise, they couldn't care less because it's all just eyeballs on the page for them, and we're just more of those eyeballs.

Speaker 1: 33:29

So we have to do what we can to support each other as a community. We have to shine a light into the dark practices, the shadow online remote work world, where it's not about remote work, it's just about scams, and we thank you for listening to this, for being part of Remote Work Europe, and we encourage you to stay in touch with us, to share this episode, to like it. Please share it with a friend if you're worried about somebody who you know really urgently needs remote work and you're worried that they might fall victim to one of these upcoming scams that you've heard about, you're aware about. You want to empower them to protect themselves. Please help us get the word out and thank you for listening to Remote Work Europe.

Speaker 1: 34:13

You've been listening to the remote work europe podcast brought to you by remote work europeeu. We bring you community information, training, coaching and more to help you achieve your location, independent lifestyle in europe and beyond as an employee, entrepreneur, freelancer or whatever you want to be. If you enjoyed the show, please like, rate and comment and subscribe to our feed wherever you get your podcasts. If you really liked it, we'd appreciate a review as well. Here's to your remote work success in europe and around the world. You.