A New Yorker who got texted a job offer wound up out of $20,000. Here's how.
The amount of money Americans are losing to job scams is skyrocketing, with CBS News New York finding the number quadrupled over the last few years.
Last year alone, phony jobs and employment scams cost Americans a whopping $630 million.
How an Upper West Sider says she lost $20,000
Upper West Side resident Kathryn Detweiler says she lost about $20,000. It all started with a text from someone claiming to be a job recruiter.
"They used the name of a former employer of mine to give it credibility," Detweiler said.
She was asked to approve online advertisements, supposedly for brands like Strava, AXS Tickets, and Monopoly, all on a website she thought belonged to a New York-based company called Mediareach. The catch was that she had to use her own money to fund the ads, with promise of getting it all back, and then some.
"I ran these three ads for the company, and then I got paid, and it was something like, I think, $120 or something. I think the initial investment was like $18 or something," Detweiler said.
"There will be nothing left"
She said that money earned her trust, but as she funded more ads over the next few months, the website showed a growing balance, which she now knows was fake. She says the purported marketing company kept saying she could only withdraw the funds if she first invested more money, so she did.
The people Detweiler thought she was working for didn't respond to CBS News New York when we reached out. However, a real, UK-based company called Mediareach told CBS News New York scammers cloned parts of its website, and the actual company has no business in the U.S.
The phony webpage -- mediareach-us.it.com -- is still up, inviting people to sign in or create an account.
"I sort of just broke down and my family found me, and I told them the whole story, and they just told me, 'Kathryn, this is a scam, you have to get out of it,'" Detweiler said. "They will just milk you until you're dry. There will be nothing left."
Detweiller says she's hoping police can answer the $20,000 question: Who took her money?
"It has made everything so incredibly tight. Like, I don't have money to buy groceries a lot of weeks, and I've really had to find ways to work more hours here and there," Detweiller said.
"It's insidious"
Data from the Federal Trade Commission shows Americans reported $630 million in losses to job scams last year. That number has more than quadrupled since 2021 -- a 385% increase. In the last six months alone, at least 10 people reported scams to the Better Business Bureau, describing a fake New York company called Mediareach.
"It's insidious, because what happens here is people who are vulnerable, who are looking for work, they think they have gotten into something that can help them," Claire Rosenzweig of the Better Business Bureau said.
The BBB says you should never respond to unsolicited calls, texts or emails about jobs, and never pay for employment.
"If you have to pay to get paid, it's a scam. Don't do it," Rosenzweig said.
