Caution advised!

Vorarlberg resident falls victim to mini-job scam

The Chamber of Labor has observed a sharp increase in scams involving supposedly lucrative mini-jobs.

(Bild: AK Vorarlberg)

The Consumer Protection Department of the Vorarlberg Chamber of Labor warns of a new scam that is currently circulating on social media and in messenger services. A Vorarlberg resident lost several thousand euros.

The offer sounds tempting: the scammers trick users into believing that they can earn good money with minimal activities - such as advertising hotels or submitting online reviews. In order to keep interested parties on board and feign seriousness, small commissions are actually paid at the beginning. Later on, however, the mini-jobbers are required to make deposits so that they can continue working - and earn the really big commissions. The latter, of course, never flow and the money paid in is lost forever. As if that wasn't enough, the perpetrators also use this scam to obtain private data such as addresses, bank details and personal information.

Number of victims on the rise
A young man from Vorarlberg recently fell victim to the scammers. He was contacted via social media to advertise hotels online. After an initial small payout, he had to deposit money in order to continue - ultimately losing several thousand euros. "This case is just one example of a large number of similar cases," explains Dr. Franz Valandro, consumer protection officer at the Vorarlberg Chamber of Labour. "The number of inquiries we receive in this regard is constantly increasing."

Exercise healthy skepticism!
This makes it all the more important to be careful. According to the AK consumer protection association, there are typical characteristics that can be used to recognize attempts at fraud. For example, the requests are often sent from strange addresses and contain spelling and grammatical errors. "Unexpected text messages should be checked skeptically and links in emails or text messages should not be clicked on," advises Valandro. He also recommends that all users do not even respond to unexpected job offers via messenger services or social media and block unknown contacts. And as a general rule: as soon as you are asked to pay in money, all alarm bells should ring!

Anyone who has fallen victim to such a scam can contact the AK consumer protection department.