Check the sending domain character by character, verify the recruiter through the company’s own website rather than anything in their email, and never send bank details or pay a fee to “activate” an account. Real hiring platforms don’t charge talent to be hired and don’t fast-track people who reply quickly. Those three habits catch almost every fake offer.
Creative freelancers are a good target. You’re actively looking, you’re used to being approached out of the blue, and the work is remote by default — so nothing about a stranger emailing you an opportunity feels unusual.
The FTC has reported that losses to job scams increased more than threefold from 2020 (FTC Data Spotlight). Editors and designers write to our support team fairly regularly asking one version of the same question: “I need you to verify if this is an email from you guys or scammers.”
Asking is exactly right. Here’s what to look for so you can usually answer it yourself.
This is the single most reliable tell. Read the sending address one character at a time, not at a glance.
The common trick is a lookalike domain — a real company’s brand with something added, swapped or removed. A legitimate company at company.com gets impersonated from company-team.com, getcompany.com, company.co, or cornpany.com.
Your eye reads the brand name and skips the rest. That’s what the technique relies on.
Two habits that beat it: type the company’s real domain into your browser yourself rather than clicking anything in the email, and compare the address you were sent against the one on the site you reached independently.
Also treat free-email addresses as a flag. A recruiter from an established platform emailing from Gmail or Outlook is unusual enough to verify before engaging (Robert Half).
Recognisable names do the persuasion that a real opportunity wouldn’t need.
A common pattern in messages sent to creative freelancers is a list of well-known creators or brands who supposedly hire through the sender. The names are usually real and genuinely well-known, which is the point — they’re borrowed, not claimed.
This is worth understanding clearly, because name-dropping on its own isn’t proof of anything. Real platforms do mention the creators who use them. The difference is what the names are doing in the message. On a legitimate site they’re context. In a cold email that also wants you to reply fast and hand something over, they’re leverage.
Judge the ask, not the logos.
“Reply and I’ll personally fast-track your account” is a manufactured reason to act now.
Legitimate hiring is boring. You apply, you wait, you might get a test, you might get rejected. Real platforms don’t reward speed of reply with special access, and a real recruiter has no personal ability to skip their own company’s verification.
Related versions of the same move: an offer that expires in hours, a role you never applied for presented as already yours, or being told you’ve been “selected” before any conversation about your work.
Rapid hiring with no interview and no credential check is a documented scam signal (Robert Half).
You should never pay to be hired, and you should never send bank details before there’s real work agreed.
The clearest rule in this whole area: legitimate talent platforms make money from the people hiring, not from the people looking for work. Any request for an application fee, a training fee, a software licence, an equipment deposit or a “verification” payment is the end of the conversation.
Watch for the subtler version too. Being sent a cheque or transfer and asked to forward part of it somewhere is a classic overpayment scam, and you’ll be liable when the original payment reverses.
Bank details are for invoicing an agreed piece of work. Not for account setup, not for “confirming eligibility,” not before you’ve spoken to anyone.
A recruiter who won’t take a call or use a company email address is avoiding accountability.
Moving straight to WhatsApp, Telegram or Discord and staying there is a strong signal. So is refusing a short video call, or only ever communicating in writing while being vague about which office or team they’re on (Robert Half).
This one needs a caveat, because creator-economy hiring genuinely does happen in DMs. A creator messaging you on Instagram about editing their videos is completely normal. The flag isn’t the channel — it’s the channel plus a refusal to verify identity any other way.
Ask for a call. Real people say yes.
Unusually high pay for minimal qualifications is the oldest signal there is, and it still works.
A retainer well above market for a role that didn’t ask to see your portfolio should stop you cold. So should being hired without anyone watching your reel — that’s the inverse of how real creator hiring works, where the work sample is the entire basis of the decision.
If you’ve read our guide on building a portfolio with no clients, you’ll know creators screen hard on the first ten seconds of an edit. Someone offering you good money without looking at any of that isn’t buying editing.
Under five minutes, and it resolves nearly everything:
If those three come back clean, you’re almost certainly fine. If any come back odd, stop.
Useful as a mental checklist:
Identity verification before payout is normal and usually required by payment processors — but it happens inside the platform, not in a chat thread with a stranger.
Report it to the real company. They can warn other users and pursue the domain. Forward the full email including headers if you can.
Don’t engage further, even to tell them you know. Confirming a live address invites more.
If you’ve already sent bank details, contact your bank and tell them what happened. If you’ve sent identity documents, watch for account-opening attempts in your name.
Warn your peers. These campaigns work by volume across a community. One person posting the domain in a Discord or a group chat protects a lot of people.
Questions our support team receives about suspicious messages, in their own words.
Always ask — and ask through the company’s published support address, not by replying to the suspicious message. Real companies would far rather answer this than have someone impersonate them. Include the full sender address.
Exactly the right question. Verify the domain independently, check whether the person appears on the company’s own site, and ask support directly. Offers to bypass a normal process are worth verifying even when the person turns out to be real.
Report it to the platform — they can see account signals you can’t. Don’t send files, payment details or personal contact information until they confirm.
Inside a platform, yes — payment processors generally require identity verification before payout. Over a messaging app to an individual, no. The difference is whether you’re uploading to a system you reached by typing the company’s address yourself.
Bookmark the real domain of every platform you use. When something arrives that doesn’t match it, you’ll notice in seconds.
If you want to check what a legitimate creator job actually looks like, browse open jobs on Roster — it’s free for talent, there are no fees, and you keep 100% of what you earn. You can also set up a profile so opportunities reach you through a channel you control, and the FAQ covers what we will and won’t ask you for.
Join 100+ creators using roster to hire both production
and non-production roles without the hassle.
