Before you reply to a recruiter.
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A recruiter, an agency or an employer has contacted you, or you are about to apply. Check the message and the offer here before you reply, pay or send any documents.
The short answer. Before you reply to a recruiter, check who is being paid, whether you can find the company without the message, whether the email address is the company's own, and what is being asked for before you are hired. Paste the message here, or answer six questions. It points out the warning signs that United Kingdom, United States and South African agencies describe, and it cannot show that an offer is real.
was reported lost to job and employment agency fraud in the United States in 2024, up from $90 million in 2020.
United States Federal Trade Commission, 10 March 2025. Read the Federal Trade Commission page
What you type here stays on this phone or computer. There is no sign-up, and nothing is saved. Turn the internet off and this page still works. Many recruiters are real. This page points out the warning signs that agencies describe, and it cannot show that an offer is real.
Check the message.
Paste the email, text, LinkedIn or WhatsApp message, or the job advert.
About the language of this message.
Job hunting? Two more free checks help.
Check a course before you pay for it, and hide your name and contact details before you paste your CV into an artificial intelligence assistant.
Check a courseHide names from AIBefore you reply, check it yourself: find the company’s own website by searching its name, and use the contact details on that site to ask whether this recruiter works for them and how they collect documents. Ask for any offer in writing. Nothing here shows that an offer is real, and each answer is a question to put to the company.
If you already paid or sent documents.
Do not pay anything more, and do not send more documents. Not for a fee, a “security deposit”, equipment, or a cheque you are asked to deposit and send part of back.
- Stop replying, and keep everything: screenshots of the advert, the messages, the recruiter’s profile address, receipts and the documents you sent.
- Phone your bank on the number printed on your card or in its own app if you paid or gave bank details. Ask it to hold payments that have not gone through, and about reversing the ones that have.
- Change passwords, starting with your email.
- Protect your name if you sent identity documents. I sent my identity to a recruiter: what now? sets out the steps for the United Kingdom, the United States and South Africa.
- Report it where you live, and tell the job site where you found the advert. Before You Pay writes the messages to your bank and to the company.
Offers to get your money back: someone who contacts you promising to recover what you lost, for a fee paid first, is targeting people who have already lost money. Read why.
What this cannot do
This check looks only at the message and details you enter. It cannot confirm that a recruiter, company or job is real, and a result with no warnings is not a guarantee. Contact the company yourself through its official website before sharing documents or personal details.