When two things look alike, the fastest way to tell them apart is to put them in one table and read across. Find the row that matches your situation and compare.
The side-by-side
| What to check | A real job offer | A scam |
|---|---|---|
| Interview process | One or more live interviews, by phone or video, with named people | None, or only text and chat; an offer with no real conversation |
| Email domain | The company's real domain ([email protected]) |
A lookalike (acme-careers.com) or free address (gmail.com) |
| Contact channel | Company email and scheduled calls | A fast push to WhatsApp or Telegram |
| Direction money flows | Toward you, and only after you work | Away from you: a fee, a deposit, or "send part back" |
| Request for bank or SSN | Only at onboarding, after a signed offer, via a secure portal | Early, over email or chat, "to set up your account" |
| Pay realism | In line with the role and the market | Too high for simple or unskilled remote work |
| Where you apply | The company's official careers page | A link in the message, to a form on a lookalike site |
| Speed of the offer | After a real process | Instant, sometimes for a job you never applied to |
| Pressure and urgency | You are given time to decide | "Reserve your spot today" manufactured urgency |
| Job on official careers page | Listed on the employer's own site | Not found anywhere but the message |
| Upfront fees | Never | Training, equipment, background check, starter kit |
| Written offer before personal data | Always comes first | Skipped; personal data requested before any offer |
How to read it
You will rarely match the scam column on every row, and you do not need to. The decisive rows are the ones about money and personal data: any request to pay, any "send part back" arrangement, any demand for your bank account or SSN before a signed offer. A single match there outweighs a dozen reassuring rows elsewhere - a polished offer letter does not cancel out a request for a fee.
The softer rows - interview, channel, speed, urgency - are most telling in combination. An instant offer that arrives by Telegram, for a job you never applied to, with pay that seems too good, is a scam even before anyone asks for money.
Check a specific offer
This table is the general shape. For the specific posting or message in front of you, paste it into the free checker - it inspects the email domain, the company's official careers board, the pay realism, and the known scam patterns, then returns an evidence-backed verdict and the next step. For the reasoning behind each row, read how to spot a job scam.