Fake federal and health care job offers: how to spot and check them

A text arrives offering a remote federal job at a salary well above what you earn now. Or an email says you have been selected for a VA position you do not remember applying for, and asks for your bank details to set up direct deposit. Or a caller who says they work for your board of nursing warns that your license is about to be suspended unless you pay today. All three are common scams, and all three are built to feel urgent.

This guide is for anyone looking for government or health care work, and especially for people who have recently lost a job and are applying widely, which is exactly when these offers land. It explains how the main scams work, gives you checks you can run in a few minutes, and sets out what to do straight away if you have already paid or shared personal information.

What do fake federal and health care job offers look like?

Most job scams fall into a handful of patterns. The details change; the shape does not.

• Pay to get the job. You are told you have been chosen, but first you must pay for training, a certification, a starter kit, a background check or a processing fee. The FTC lists paying for training, certifications or job guarantees as a sign of a scam.
• The fake check. You are hired for a remote role and sent a check to buy equipment from a named supplier. You deposit it, send money to the supplier, and the check bounces weeks later. The FTC explains that the bank will want the full amount back while the scammer keeps what you sent.
• Task or “optimization” jobs. An unexpected text or WhatsApp message offers easy online work rating products or clicking through an app. Small early payouts build trust, then you are told to deposit money, often in cryptocurrency, to unlock your earnings. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center flags the word “optimization” and payments in crypto to your employer as red flags.
• The government impersonator. Someone claims to be a federal recruiter or a USAJOBS partner and offers a guaranteed federal job, priority placement or a shortcut past the normal process, usually for a fee.
• The identity harvest. Nothing is asked for up front, but before any interview you are asked for your Social Security number, date of birth, bank account or a copy of your driver’s license for payroll or onboarding.
• The license threat. Aimed at nurses, pharmacists and prescribers rather than job seekers: a caller or letter says you are under investigation and must pay or hand over details to avoid losing your license.

How common are job scams?

Common enough that federal agencies now track them as their own category. The FTC reported in March 2025 that the number of job and employment agency scam reports tripled between 2020 and 2024, and that reported losses rose from $90 million to $501 million. In a December 2024 analysis of task scams specifically, it counted about 20,000 reports in the first half of 2024, against about 5,000 in all of 2023.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded 24,688 employment fraud complaints in 2025, with reported losses of $362,934,762. Government impersonation, which includes fake officials of every kind, drew 32,424 complaints and $797,943,193 in reported losses. The FTC, counting its own reports, put 2025 losses to government impersonators at about $920 million.

These are only the losses people chose to report to those two agencies. They are a floor, not a total, and they do not count the time, credit damage and stress that follow a stolen identity.

How do you check whether a federal job offer is real?

Run these checks in order. The first two settle most cases in a few minutes.

• Find the job yourself. Type usajobs.gov into your browser rather than following a link, and search for the job title, agency or announcement number you were given. VA says its jobs are posted on USAJOBS and official VA Careers pages. If you cannot find the job there, treat the offer as unverified until the agency’s HR office confirms it.
• Ask how you got here. A real federal offer follows an application you submitted. USAJOBS describes a process in which the agency reviews applications after the announcement closes, refers the highest qualified to a hiring official, and the hiring official chooses whom to interview. An offer for a job you never applied for is a warning sign on its own.
• Contact the agency through a number or address you found independently, such as the contact listed on the USAJOBS announcement or the agency’s own .gov website. Never use the phone number, email address or link in the message you are checking.
• Look hard at the web address. Only verified U.S. government organizations can register a .gov domain, according to get.gov, the registry run by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. A site ending in .com, .org or .net that uses an agency’s name, or a domain such as an agency name with extra words and hyphens, is not a government site. Bear in mind that the sender name on an email or text can be faked, so a .gov-looking sender is not proof on its own.
• Know what USAJOBS will and will not send. USAJOBS says it will never ask for personal information in an email, including your Social Security number or any financial information, and never sends attachments. It advises typing the address yourself instead of clicking links in a suspicious message, and reporting doubtful emails through its Contact Us form.
• Watch the channel. VA lists communication restricted to text or private messaging apps, job offers without interviews, pressure to act quickly and extremely high pay for minimal qualifications as red flags.

One nuance is worth knowing. Plenty of real work linked to federal health care is done by contractors and staffing firms, which use ordinary .com addresses and hire through their own websites. A .com address does not make an offer fake. It means you verify the company the same way you would any private employer, which is the next section.

How do you check a hospital, clinic or staffing agency offer?

• Find the posting on the employer’s own careers site, reached by typing the organization’s address yourself. A public hospital system, county health department or state agency will list its openings there or on its civil service portal.
• Call the organization’s main switchboard, using the number on its own website, and ask HR to confirm the recruiter’s name and the requisition number.
• Compare the pay with published figures for the same role and area. VA lists extremely high pay for minimal qualifications as a red flag, and public-sector pay is often public record, so a wildly generous offer is easy to test.
• Expect a real interview. A health care employer that hires you without ever speaking to you, or interviews you only by chat, is not following normal practice.
• Never pay to have your license checked. Employers verify licenses themselves, and you can check your own nursing license through Nursys QuickConfirm, which NCSBN runs, or on your state board’s website.

Scams aimed at nurses, pharmacists and prescribers

Licensed clinicians get a second kind of scam that plays on the fear of losing a license. The script is consistent: you are under investigation, your license will be suspended, and a payment or your personal details will make it go away. The caller may be hostile, and caller ID may show the real organization’s number.

• NCSBN says it will never call a nurse, nurse applicant or anyone else requesting personal information, and warns that scammers spoof its phone numbers and claim action is needed to prevent a license from being suspended.
• The Texas Board of Nursing says its staff will not notify licensees over the phone of complaints or investigations, and that scammers have spoofed its main number so it appears on caller ID.
• The Drug Enforcement Administration says it is not its practice to call registrants about investigative matters, that its personnel will never demand money or ask for personal or sensitive information, and that it notifies people of a legitimate investigation only in person or by official letter. It adds that federal law enforcement officers are prohibited from demanding cash or gift cards from the public.

If you get one of these calls, take the caller’s name and number, hang up, and check your license status yourself through Nursys QuickConfirm or your board’s own website. If you are worried, call the board on the number published on its official site. The DEA asks people contacted by someone claiming to be DEA to report it to the FBI at ic3.gov and to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Already paid or shared your details? What to do today

Speed matters, because some payments can be stopped or reversed if you act before the money moves on. The FTC’s advice is to contact whoever you used to send the money straight away, report the fraud and ask for the transaction to be reversed.

• Credit or debit card: call the card issuer or your bank, report the charge as fraud and ask for a refund.
• Bank transfer or Zelle: call your bank or credit union and ask it to reverse the payment.
• Payment app such as Venmo, Cash App or PayPal: report it in the app and ask for the payment to be reversed and refunded.
• Gift card: contact the company that issued the card, tell it a scammer got the card number and PIN, and ask for your money back.
• Wire transfer: call the wire transfer company and ask for the transfer to be reversed.
• Cryptocurrency: contact the exchange or crypto ATM operator and ask it to reverse the transaction.
• Cash sent by mail: call the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on 1-877-876-2455, which may be able to intercept the package for a fee.
• A check you deposited: tell your bank before you spend any of it, and do not send any of the money on to anyone.

If you gave out your Social Security number, bank details or a copy of your ID, treat it as identity theft even if nothing has happened yet. Report it at IdentityTheft.gov, the FTC’s site, which produces a personal recovery plan. Place a credit freeze with each of the three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and a fraud alert with any one of them, which must then tell the other two. Check your credit reports at AnnualCreditReport.com and watch your bank statements for anything you do not recognize.

Where to report a job scam

• The Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, for any job scam. The DEA notes that the FTC shares reports with more than 3,000 law enforcement agencies.
• The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov, especially for online and cryptocurrency losses. Include transaction details.
• USAJOBS, through the Contact Us form on usajobs.gov, if the scam used USAJOBS’s name or an email that looked like it came from USAJOBS.
• VSAFE.gov or (833) 38V-SAFE, the VA’s fraud line, if you are a veteran or the scam used VA’s name.
• Your state attorney general’s consumer protection office.
• Your state board of nursing or pharmacy, if the scammer claimed to be from it.

Reporting is not a formality. The FTC’s Government and Business Impersonation Rule, in effect since April 1, 2024, lets the agency go to federal court to seek money back for people harmed by impersonators and civil penalties against them, and reports are how those cases are built. Be wary of anyone who contacts you afterward offering to recover your money for a fee: the FBI warns against services that claim they can recover lost cryptocurrency.

Is an email from a .gov address always genuine?

A real .gov domain can only be registered by a verified U.S. government organization, but the sender name you see in an email can be faked. Do not rely on the sender line. Find the job and the contact details yourself, and reply only through those.

Will a real employer send me a check before I start?

A check for equipment, to be spent with a supplier the employer names, is the classic fake check scam. The FTC explains that banks must make deposited funds available quickly, that a fake check can take weeks to be discovered, and that you will be the one repaying the bank.

My board of nursing called about an investigation. What now?

Do not pay and do not give personal details on that call. Hang up, check your license on Nursys QuickConfirm or your board’s website, and call the board on its published number if you are unsure. The Texas Board of Nursing, NCSBN and the DEA all say they do not handle investigations by demanding payment over the phone.

Last reviewed Sep 13, 2026. First published Oct 2, 2026. Federal hiring rules change — confirm anything you act on against the agency's own announcement or OPM guidance.