I was offered a remote job after a short email interview. They've now sent me a check for $4,000 to buy office equipment. Is this a scam?

Remote job seekers must be aware of these risks, but it’s often hard to tell if an offer is legit. For example, let’s pretend that Clara was offered a remote job paying $6,000 per month. She was hired after a short email interview, and her boss even sent her a $4,000 check to buy office equipment from the company’s preferred vendor within 24 hours.

However, while Clara was excited to add a standing desk and a computer to her cart, her husband warned it may be a scam, and now she’s concerned. But is he right? Should Clara deposit the check and buy the equipment? How can she tell if the opportunity is legit?

Is Clara’s work-from-home job a scam?

Unfortunately for Clara, experts agree that her job offer is almost certainly a scam.

“Employers don’t generally hire after one short interview, and they are highly unlikely to send a substantial check to a new hire to buy their own equipment,” Jeffrey Nadrich, an attorney who regularly represents scam victims at Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers, told Moneywise.

Francis West, founder of Security Everywhere, agreed.

“This is almost certainly a scam,” West said. “’They hired me fast, then sent me money’ is one of the oldest and most reliable red flags there is. Legitimate employers don’t fill roles after one short interview, and they never ask a brand-new hire to receive a check and spend it on their behalf before day one,” West told Moneywise.

How does the scam work?

Not only is Clara’s job offer likely a scam, but it’s actually a classic one that follows a common playbook.

“That scenario is likely an overpayment scam,” Nadrich said. And West agreed, although he called it a classic “fake-check” or “money mule” scam.

These kinds of scams can work in a couple of different ways.

“The scammer sends a fraudulent check, which may initially appear to clear,” Kingsley said. “Then, the scammer claims they accidentally overpaid and asks the victim to return the excess funds. Once the check is discovered to be fraudulent and bounces, the victim is responsible for the money they sent back and learns the job never existed.”

Or, since Clara has been encouraged to buy the furniture from a preferred vendor, scammers could potentially get her money that way. Clara could deposit the check, then go to the “vendor” and spend the money on office equipment that never comes.

The funds would be transferred out of her bank account to pay the fake vendor, and when the fraud was discovered a few days later, the deposit would be reversed and the outlay for the fake “office supplies” would be taken out of Clara’s account directly.

“Your bank may release the funds within a couple of days, so it feels like the check cleared,” Clayton Liabraaten, a senior strategic advisor at Truecaller, told Moneywise. “It didn’t. The counterfeit gets caught weeks later, and the money comes back out of your account.”

How can Clara protect herself?

The first thing Clara must do to protect herself is avoid the scam if she’s currently caught up in one.

“If you find yourself on the receiving end of an offer like this, do not deposit or spend any of the funds,” Nadrich said, adding that Clara should “verify the employer independently, and call the bank that issued the check to confirm whether it’s real.”

West agreed.

“Don’t deposit it, don’t spend any of it, and don’t wire any ‘leftover’ funds back to the sender,” West said. “Report it to your bank and to the relevant authority, and keep the check as evidence. If it’s already been deposited, contact the bank immediately — the faster you act, the more likely the [potential] damage can be limited.”

If the employer is indeed a scammer, Clara also needs to sever ties with them — and potentially take additional steps to shore up her accounts.

“Discontinue all contact with the scammer and call your bank using the number on the back of your credit or debit card,” Kingsley said. “Your bank can help you secure your accounts, especially if you shared personal or banking information with the scammer.”