It opens with a side-job offer: like videos and rate product photos on your phone, earn a commission for every tap, cash out when you finish a set. The first few times, a few dollars really do come out. Then one set of tasks requires you to top up your account first, to "unlock" the next set and to withdraw the balance that keeps climbing on the screen. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) calls this a task scam, and each step below follows its consumer alert and its data report.
- If you have to pay before you get paid, it isn't a job. The FTC's wording is "Never pay anyone to get paid."
- The earnings on that screen are a number the platform wrote in itself. The few dollars you cashed out early (usually $5 to $20, according to the FTC) are there to make you believe that number.
- Sets of 40, double tasks, levels to unlock: if it feels more like an online game, the FTC report's verdict is that it's a scam.
How the like-and-rate job message from a stranger starts
In August 2025 the FTC published a consumer alert, "How to spot and avoid task scams", that opens with this scene: a stranger messages you on WhatsApp, Telegram, by text or on social media, offering quick money for doing tasks online, with pay you can get right away.
The FTC's December 2024 data report boils these scams down to three things they share. First, they start with an unexpected text or WhatsApp message about online work that never says what the job actually is. Second, you're told the work consists of "tasks," often wrapped in official-sounding jargon; the report's examples are "product boosting" and "app optimization." Third, the whole setup is designed to hook you.
The part worth pausing on is that vagueness. A real job starts by telling you the role, the employer and how you'll be paid. This message flips that around: the money is promised up front and the work stays fuzzy. The FTC's first piece of advice lands right here: ignore generic, unsolicited job messages, because real employers don't reach out that way.
When the message arrives, check one thing
Who contacted whom first, and whether they've told you which company you'd be working for and what you'd be doing. If it's all about the pay and nothing about the employer, there's no need to keep the conversation going.
What the tasks look like: likes, ratings, sets of 40
The tasks in the FTC report are simple and repetitive: liking videos and rating product images. You do them inside an app or on a website, and every tap shows another "commission" landing in your balance.
Two more details in the report read like the rules of a game: tasks often come in sets of 40, and finishing a set lets you "level up"; now and then a so-called "double task" pops up with a bigger commission.
That game-like design is doing a job of its own. The FTC report's verdict is that if a job feels more like an online game than a job, it's a scam. Progress bars, levels and doubled rewards make you want to finish the set, not stop and ask where the money is actually coming from.
There's a legal angle too. The FTC's third tip is not to trust anyone who says they'll pay you to rate or like things, because no legitimate company will. The report goes further and says this activity is illegal, pointing to the rule it issued in 2024 banning fake reviews. In other words, even if someone really did pay you, the "job" itself doesn't hold up.
The first withdrawals go through, so why is it still a scam?
The FTC alert explains that as you complete tasks, the earnings shown in the app keep growing. Those numbers are fake, but the scammers need you to believe they're real, so they may pay you a small amount first, usually $5 to $20, to win your trust. The report likewise describes the small early payouts as a way of building trust.
This is the cheapest step in the whole script, and the one that pays off best for the scammers. Before it, the question in your head is "could this be a scam?" After it, you have something to point to: "I've already withdrawn money from this." Every time you hesitate later, that memory speaks up for the platform.
So read those few dollars the other way around. They don't show the platform can pay; they show the scammers are willing to spend that much to buy your trust. Pig butchering uses the same move, letting you make one successful withdrawal first. Here it comes dressed as a side job.
Is it a scam if you must deposit before you can withdraw?
Yes. The FTC's alert and its report both describe this step. At some stage you're told you have to deposit money into your account, usually in cryptocurrency according to the alert, before you can unlock and finish the next set of tasks or withdraw your "earnings" from the app. The report adds more detail: you "charge up" so you won't lose what the app says you've already earned, expecting to get your deposit back along with the commission once the set is done.
Here's how it ends. Whatever the system says you've earned, you haven't earned it, because that money isn't real, and the money you deposited doesn't come back. As the alert puts it, even if you do top up, you won't get those (fake) earnings, and your real money will be gone.
Pay to get paid? You don't need a second red flag
The FTC's position on this step: anyone who asks you to pay before you can collect money you've "already earned" is a sure sign of a scam, and no legitimate business works that way. The charge can be called an unlock, an upgrade, a top-up to cover a shortfall, a deposit, or the price of a double task. As long as you have to send money in before you can take money out, the question is settled.
What makes this step so hard to walk away from is that stopping means admitting that the long string of numbers before it was fake. The bigger the balance on screen, the stronger the pull of "one more top-up and I can take it all out." The FTC report makes the same point: these scammers know how hard it is for people to cut their losses in time.
As for why crypto, the report says cryptocurrency is the payment method of choice for these scams. Once the money is gone, someone may show up offering to "recover" it and scam you again; that is the crypto recovery scam.
Added to a task group where everyone says they got paid: can you trust it?
If you balk at depositing, the FTC report says, scammers often invite you into a group chat where newcomers hear success stories from "experienced" workers. The report notes in parentheses that these people are fake.
The group does the same work as those first few dollars: it uses other people's "success" to talk you out of your doubts. The buzz, the screenshots and the thank-you messages can all be staged. Don't let the group set the standard for you. Go back to the one question that matters: is this asking you to send money in?
Added to the group? Three things you can do
- Don't debate depositing in the group. Everyone in there is on the side that wants you to pay.
- Save what you can see first: the accounts contacting you, the group name, the app's name and where you downloaded it, and a record of every transfer you've made. You'll need these whatever happens next.
- Leave, and don't explain. You don't owe them a reason for quitting.
How many people report task scams: the FTC's figures and what they count
These numbers come from consumer reports to the US FTC, so they describe the United States. The FTC also notes that only a small share of people who are scammed report it, so the figures capture only part of the real harm.
On that basis:
- Reported losses to job scams more than tripled from 2020 to 2023, and topped $220 million in the first half of 2024 alone.
- Task scam reports reached about 20,000 in the first half of 2024, up from about 5,000 in all of 2023. The FTC notes these are estimates, extrapolated from a random sample of 500 job scam reports hand-coded for each year.
- Job scam losses paid in cryptocurrency came to about $41 million in the first half of 2024, compared with about $21 million for all of 2023. The report says crypto now accounts for more job scam losses than any other payment method.
Already deposited and can't withdraw: what to do
Work through these in order:
- Don't send anything more. However close they say you are to withdrawing everything, every payment from here on is a new loss.
- Screenshot the task app and the group first: the app's name and where you downloaded it, the "earnings" page inside the app, and the task group's name and member accounts. The platform can be shut down at any time.
- Report it where you live:
- United States: as the FTC alert says, report to ReportFraud.ftc.gov; you can also file with the FBI's IC3.
- United Kingdom: Report Fraud (previously Action Fraud), online or on 0300 123 2040; in Scotland, Police Scotland on 101.
- Australia: the Australian Cyber Security Centre's ReportCyber, and Scamwatch.
- Canada: the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, online or toll free on 1-888-495-8501.
- Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China and elsewhere: the channels are listed in where to report a crypto scam.
If you deposited in cryptocurrency, the steps for recording each transfer's transaction hash, receiving address and time, and for which platform to contact, are in the section for people who sent the crypto themselves. If someone contacts you offering to get the money back, compare their pitch with the warning signs in crypto recovery scams.
Other schemes sold as a "side job" or "earnings"
- Paid to forward USDT: this "side job" has your accounts pass on strangers' money, which mainland China prosecutes as paofen.
- Pig butchering and "signal mentors", stage by stage: it also lets you withdraw successfully once, but arrives through a relationship.
- Scam self-check: run the message you received through its questions.