A Philadelphia woman looking to make a little extra money through a part-time online job ended up losing nearly $200 after falling for what the Federal Trade Commission calls a “task scam.”<\/p>\n
Veronica Silva Casanova was searching for a simple side hustle when she came across a social media ad offering money to assemble crafts for a company called Handmade.<\/p>\n
“Something to make a little extra money, I guess,” Silva Casanova said.<\/p>\n
The opportunity seemed simple enough. But after connecting with a so-called recruiter, the conversation moved to a third-party messaging app and the job description suddenly changed.<\/p>\n
Instead of assembling crafts, Silva Casanova said she was instructed to visit Handmade’s website, find products, “like” them and send screenshots to the recruiter.<\/p>\n
Then came a request for what the recruiter called a “prepaid task.”<\/p>\n
Silva Casanova said she was told she needed to send money to the company before she could get paid and she complied. <\/p>\n
“I lost a little less than $200, which might not be a lot for a lot of people but when you have a restricted income, it can be a lot,” Silva Casanova said.<\/p>\n
She eventually became suspicious when the requests for money continued.<\/p>\n
“When they were pressuring me for money, or more, more, more money,” Silva Casanova said when asked when she began to suspect it was a scam.<\/p>\n
Scammers use real company’s name to advertise fake jobs<\/p>\n
After Silva Casanova contacted NBC10 Responds, we looked into the job offer and discovered that while Handmade is a legitimate company, the advertised jobs were not.<\/p>\n
On its website, Handmade.com warns that scammers are using its name to advertise fraudulent product assembly and paid task jobs, including offers made through third-party messaging apps.<\/p>\n
The scheme matches what the Federal Trade Commission calls a “task scam,” in which scammers offer seemingly simple online work but eventually require people to deposit their own money to receive payment.<\/p>\n
How to spot an online task scam<\/p>\n
One of the biggest warning signs of a task scam is being asked to pay money before receiving earnings.<\/p>\n
If you come across an online job offer that seems too good to be true, don’t rely solely on links or information provided by a recruiter.<\/p>\n
Instead, visit the company’s official website directly to verify that the job actually exists.<\/p>\n
For Silva Casanova, speaking out about her experience is a way to help others avoid losing money to a similar scheme.<\/p>\n
“I understand that I’m not gonna get anything out of this in return, but at least I can make people aware because it seems very simple,” she said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Philadelphia woman looking to make a little extra money through a part-time online job ended up losing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21563,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-309518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-nbc10-responds","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}