Employment Fraud: “Click Farm”

2022-03-30

Defrauding Tricks

Recently, there has been an overwhelming volume of deceptive messages on recruitment of “click farmers” on social media platforms. Scammers made up the job of “click farmers” whose duty would be shopping on online shopping platforms to boost sales, and claimed that applicants could earn commission according to their shopping amount. Lured by the advertisements promoting “hefty commission”, “qualification or experience not needed” and “work from home”, victims applied for the job of “click farmers”.

The scammers would ask the victims to put goods into shopping carts on the online shopping platform and send screenshots of the carts to them. They then instructed the victims to deposit the shopping amount into a designated personal bank account. However, the account was not the company account of the online shopping platform.

The scammers would keep the promise and remit the shopping amount and commission to the victims for initial transactions, thus tricking the victims into believing them. Therefore, victims advanced more payments to go for larger amount buying. On the other hand, the scammers had already fled with the payments. 

Our Advice

• It is probably a scam if you are asked for advance payment or guarantee money before you start working, or it claims to recruit “click farmers”, “operators” or “likers”;

• Be extremely cautious if employers do not disclose their company information in recruitment advertisements, or just leave their social media or instant messaging application accounts for contact;

• Remind your relatives and friends to stay vigilant against deception;

• If you suspect that you have fallen prey to a scam, please call the “Anti-Scam Helpline 18222”.