‘They bleed you dry’: the recruitment scammers preying on Australian job seekers

"I can't stop kicking myself," Rose* says.

The 51-year-old has just lost $10,000 to scammers - a life-changing amount for the mother of three.

Rose lives off jobseeker and a small wage from the hotline business she runs in the evenings. She struggles to pay the $500-a-week rent for her home near the Gold Coast she shares with her daughters, aged 12 and 16. Often she has to juggle eating with paying for petrol.

When she was contacted by someone describing themselves as a recruitment officer over WhatsApp who offered $950 a week to write fake reviews for high-profile hotel chains, and other sites selling products online, she thought the job would give her life stability and help lift her family out of poverty.

"You had to buy things [online]. You're reviewing them as though you had bought them, the first one they paid for, and then you had to pay for them yourself," Rose says.

"Or you're doing reviews on hotels - you went on to Google, on to the review section, but you hadn't stayed in them."

Everything seemed easy - at the start, the scammers paid more for "pre-paid tasks", where Rose put in money and was paid back extra. She made $400 in two days. The scammers instructed Rose to put in larger and larger amounts - until they stopped paying her back.

"The first one is $200 and you get basically $54 back for that, which isn't much. Then you go to $800, then it's $1,200, then it's $10,000.

"They basically bleed you dry, until they've got all your money. The $10,000 that I lost, it was actually part of my business money."

Last year, Australians lost more than $8.7m to recruitment scams and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission warns that scammers are increasingly targeting the job market.

Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and Disability Support Pension recipient Kristin O'Connell says the government's welfare policies mean those on jobseeker are vulnerable to scammers.

"The reason the poorest people in the community are particularly vulnerable to these scams isn't because they're not suspicious of them, it's because the inadequacy of our welfare system leaves us desperate," O'Connell says.

"People can feel forced to participate in recruitment scams through fear of having their jobseeker payment stopped. People on jobseeker are generally not allowed to turn down paid work. The rules are so punitive that some don't have the confidence to question whether they can be forced to take these sorts of 'jobs'."

A spokesperson for IDcare, the chair that helps scam victims, says they have seen an increase recruitment scams, where job seekers are often asked for payment in exchange for guaranteed income.

"We have seen criminals leverage the changing employment market and increased preference for employment that facilitates working from home," the spokesperson says.

"Welfare recipients are certainly impacted by this scam type. We see employment scams targeted at any individual seeking employment opportunities, particularly those able to be undertaken working from home and with minimal experience."

Like a lot of scam victims, Rose has focused on all the other things she could have done with that money. Next year's school uniforms, a car for her daughter, and investment in her business so she can get off welfare.

Rose is still in the group and is hoping there will be a way to get the money back. The scammers are encouraging her to sell her car, or get a loan to keep going - saying she'll get her money back then.

But mainly, she is embarrassed and angry. She says the scammers preyed on her most vulnerable emotion - hope.

"It means everything I've worked for the last year is gone," Rose says. "I've rung the banks, I've tried to get them to get it back. It's no hope."