The Background Check Fee Scam: How Fake Employers Steal Your Money Before You Even Start Working

You see an ad for a promising work-from-home job. The pay is decent, the hours are flexible, and the duties match your skills. You apply online or through a local classified paper, and within a day or two you get a call or email saying you are basically hired. There is just one small hurdle before you can start. They need to run a background check, and you have to cover the fee. Fifty bucks, maybe a hundred. They say it is a standard procedure, and the money will be reimbursed on your first paycheck. Do not send it. That is a lie. This is the background check fee scam, one of the oldest and most persistent employment cons in the book, and it is making the rounds again.

Here is how it works. The scammer posts a realistic job listing for something like a customer service representative, a data entry clerk, or a personal assistant. They borrow the name of a real company or invent a plausible one. They may even set up a fake website and email address. When you apply, they respond quickly, often without a formal interview. They might ask a few routine questions over text or email, but there is no video call, no face-to-face meeting. That is a major red flag. A legitimate employer who is serious about hiring will almost always want at least one real conversation to evaluate your skills and personality. If they are ready to hire you after a couple of written exchanges, something is wrong.

The scam really bites when they hit you with the fee. They call it a “pre-employment background check,“ a “credit report,“ or a “processing fee.“ The amount is small enough to feel like no big deal, usually under a hundred dollars. That is deliberate. They want you to think of it as a minor inconvenience, not a major investment. They might pressure you with a deadline, saying the position will be filled if you do not pay today. Or they will sweeten the pot with a signing bonus that seems to make the fee look trivial. Either way, the goal is to get your credit card or bank routing number. Once they have it, they take the money and vanish. No job. No reimbursement. No way to contact them. And if you gave them your bank account details, they may try to drain more money or sell your information to other scammers.

This scam is especially dangerous for people in their late forties and fifties, because many of you have been out of the job market for a while or are looking for supplemental income. You might be less familiar with modern hiring practices, which often include electronic background checks. But here is the truth: genuine employers do not ask you to pay for your own background check. It costs them money to run a check, so they happily cover it. In fact, under federal law, an employer must obtain your written consent before doing a background check, and they cannot make you pay for it. If anyone asks you to shell out cash before you have a signed offer letter and a start date, you are being set up.

Another variant of this scam targets people who are desperate for a job after a layoff or a divorce. The fake employer may say the fee is for a drug test, a licensing verification, or a “work-at-home kit” with the software you will need. The story changes, but the pattern never does. They always need your money upfront, and they always promise to reimburse you later. They never do.

What should you do if you run into this? First, stop all communication. Do not try to argue with them or reason with them. They are professionals. They have heard every excuse and every plea. Just hang up, delete the email, and block the number. Second, if you already paid, contact your credit card company or bank immediately. Explain that you were scammed. You may be able to reverse the charge if you act fast. Third, report the scam to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov and to your state’s attorney general or consumer protection office. These reports help law enforcement track down the scammers and shut down their operations.

Finally, remember the golden rule for any job offer: money should flow from the employer to you, never the other way around. You bring skills, time, and effort to the table. You should never pay to be hired. A real company would sooner cut your salary than ask you to bankroll their hiring process. When a stranger on the other end of the line is telling you to hand over your credit card for the privilege of working, you are not a job candidate. You are a mark. Walk away and keep looking. There are honest employers out there, but you will not find them by emptying your wallet.