How to Verify a Job Offer and Tell If a Job Is Fake

Why fresher job seekers are targeted

Scammers go where the applicants are, and entry-level roles attract the most. Freshers are often applying widely, are unfamiliar with how hiring normally works, and are eager to get an offer. Fake listings and fake offer letters exploit that eagerness. The good news is that a small number of checks catches nearly all of them.

Check 1: Does the company exist, and does it match?

• Find the company's official website yourself. Search for it; do not click a link from the offer message. Check that the details match what you were told.
• Compare the email domain. A recruiter for a company should email from that company's own domain. Watch for lookalikes, such as an extra word or a swapped letter, and for free addresses such as Gmail or Outlook used by someone claiming to represent a large company.
• Look up the registration. Registered companies in India appear in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs records, where you can look up a company's registered name and identification number. A real business should be findable.
• Check its footprint. A real company usually has a working website with substance, an address, a company page on professional networks, and a history of employees who mention working there.

Check 2: Is the role really open?

Go to the company's own careers page and look for the same role. Genuine openings are almost always listed there, or on the company's official profile on a recognised job platform. If the company has no such page, or the role does not appear and nobody can point you to it, treat that as a serious warning. Our step-by-step guide to checking a company's official careers page shows how.

Check 3: Is the recruiter genuine?

Look up the person, not just the company. Do they have a profile that has existed for a while, lists the company as their employer, and appears among the company's staff? Ask for their official company email and confirm it through the company's own phone number, found on its website. Read our guide on verifying a recruiter or a recruitment email for a fuller checklist.

Check 4: Does the process look normal?

Real hiring has a recognisable shape: an application, some kind of screening, at least one interview, then an offer. Compare what is happening to you against these signs.

Normal	Warning sign
You applied, or a recruiter contacted you about a specific role, and you had an interview	An offer arrives with no interview, or after a single chat message
The recruiter communicates by official email and phone	Only WhatsApp, Telegram or a personal email is used
Details of the role, pay and location are specific	Very high pay for very little work, or vague details
You are asked for documents after a genuine offer, for onboarding	You are asked for bank details, an OTP or a card number before any offer
You are never asked to pay	Any registration, training, laptop, security or "verification" fee
You have time to read and decide	Pressure to accept or pay within hours

Check the offer letter itself

A fake offer letter can look polished. Look for a company name and address that match the company's website, a named signatory with a real designation, consistent formatting and dates, and a joining process that is not tied to a payment. Poor grammar and inconsistent details are common, but a well-written fake exists too, so rely on the independent checks above rather than how professional the document looks. When in doubt, call the company's HR through the number on its official website and ask them to confirm the offer.

Never pay to get a job

This is the single most reliable rule. A genuine employer pays you; it does not charge you. Fees that scams give official-sounding names include registration, security deposit, training kit, laptop, ID card, background verification and "processing" charges. Read whether you should ever pay money for a job for the details and the few exceptions people confuse with it.

What to protect until you are sure

Until a job is confirmed genuine, do not share Aadhaar or PAN copies, bank details, OTPs, or card and UPI information. There is a fuller list in our guide on what information you should never share with a recruiter. Employers legitimately need some documents at onboarding, so the aim is to share them only after you have verified the offer and only through official channels.

If you have already paid or shared something

1. Contact your bank or UPI provider immediately to report the transaction and ask what can be done.
2. Report it. For financial cyber fraud in India, call the national helpline 1930 and file a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in. Acting quickly gives the best chance of action.
3. Keep evidence: screenshots of chats, the offer letter, payment receipts and the phone numbers or accounts involved.
4. Stop communicating and block the contacts after you have saved the evidence.
5. Do not pay anything to "recover" your money. Recovery fees are a second scam.

You can also flag a suspicious listing you found through us. Every job on Your Job Mitra is checked against the employer's own careers page, as described on our verification policy, and our scam awareness page lists the most common red flags.