Some £17m lost to jobs fraud as younger jobseekers targeted, Monzo reveals

Some £17 million was lost to job scams last year, digital bank Monzo has revealed, as younger jobseekers were targeted by the fast-growing fraud.

The lender said it had created a bespoke warning tool to block suspicious payments after more than 10,000 of its customers reported falling victim to the scam.

Job scams happen when fraudsters advertise flexible, high-paying work online, frequently posing as recruiters, hiring managers, or legitimate businesses.

People are typically asked for upfront payments to unlock their wages, commission or earnings, which never materialise.

Fraudsters may also promise refunds for things such as equipment and training but once the money is sent, they cut off contact.

Of Monzo’s customers targeted by the specific scam, the age group that was most impacted was 25 to 34-year-olds.

Around a quarter of the scams happened in London, while 15% were in the south east of England and 13% were in the West Midlands.

The Financial Ombudsman Service recently said it had received thousands of complaints about job scams, with fraudsters taking advantage of people’s financial concerns by promising easy money through high-commission online jobs.

It also comes at a challenging time for many younger jobseekers, with recent official figures showing that youth unemployment was at its worst level for more than a decade.

Monzo said the rise in cases prompted it to launch a dedicated tool, which uses behavioural analysis to spot payments that match the characteristics of common job scam tactics, such as repeated upfront fee requests or staged repayments.

Customers may have a transaction automatically blocked by the bank if the technology spots something unusual, and be alerted if it looks like a job scam.

Monzo said the feature, since being rolled out in September, had helped reduce the number of affected customers by 41% and the amount of money customers have sent to fraudsters by 63%.

Some 34,000 people have been warned about a potential job scam, according to the bank, which has around 14 million customers in total.

Rich Bromley, Monzo’s director of fraud, said: “Job scams don’t discriminate and can affect anyone, especially during the pressures of a job search.

“With job scams rising across the industry, we moved quickly to build this tool to help protect our customers, and it’s working.

“We urge everyone to remember that a real job pays you – you don’t pay them.”