Dataverse | Essential Reading for Parents and Teachers about Student Summer Job Scams

SEED Foundation Protecting Students from Summer Job Scams

Trends

05 August, 2026

SEED Insider

For many secondary school students, the summer holidays represent more than just a break. They are an opportunity to enter the workforce for the first time: to earn extra pocket money, gain work experience, and learn how different industries operate. Yet it is precisely this excitement about their "first job" that makes them the easiest targets for scammers.

According to Hong Kong Police data, there were 4,095 online employment scam cases recorded in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%¹. In the first four months of 2025 alone, 1,515 cases were already recorded². More alarmingly, the proportion of student victims rose significantly from 18.7% in 2024 to 27.4% in 2025³, clearly indicating that the risks faced by young people are continuing to escalate.

What parents and teachers can do goes far beyond saying "be careful." It means helping students truly understand how these scams work before they take their first step.

1. Why Are Secondary School Students Particularly Vulnerable to Job Scams?

For many students, a summer job is their first time independently handling interviews, contracts and financial transactions, yet no one has ever seriously taught them what a normal job offer looks like versus what the warning signs are. When they are excited and curious about a particular industry, it is easy for them to overlook the procedures that legitimate recruitment should follow.

Scammers know this all too well. Every trap they design is precisely targeted at the psychological state of young people: the desire to be recognised, the fear of missing an opportunity, and the difficulty of staying calm when faced with an "on-the-spot decision."

The result is often that students are full of enthusiasm about finding a job, but are almost entirely unprepared when it comes to protecting themselves.

2. The Nine Most Common Job Scam Traps — What Parents and Teachers Must Know

According to information provided on the Labour Department's website, the methods used in employment scams continue to evolve each year, but almost all traps are built on the same logic: attract attention with enticing conditions, compress thinking time with a sense of urgency, and conceal true intentions with vague details. Understanding the following nine most common job scam traps⁴ is the first step for parents and teachers in helping students develop sound judgement.

1. "Brushing" Order Scams

Brushing order scams are currently the fastest-growing and most widespread employment trap in Hong Kong. According to police data, 96.5% of online job scams in Hong Kong in 2025 were brushing order scams⁵, a figure that illustrates just how prevalent they have become. Scammers post on social media platforms such as Instagram, Threads and Telegram, recruiting so-called "order processors," "like boosters" or "data producers," luring victims into making fake purchases on counterfeit shopping websites, with promises of refunds plus additional payment. In the early stages, scammers do follow through on their promises, but once victims are drawn into larger transactions, various excuses are made to withhold refunds, with claims that further payments must be made to recover the full amount. The entire process unfolds gradually, pulling victims deeper and deeper in.

2. Talent Scout Scams

Scammers pose as talent agents or representatives of modelling agencies, approaching young people on the street or online and claiming they can arrange performance opportunities, on the condition that the person first pays for training courses, audition fees or a deposit out of their own pocket. After collecting the money, they delay with various excuses and ultimately fail to arrange any work, with no way to recover the fees. Many students, drawn by aspirations to enter the entertainment industry and not yet equipped with mature judgement, are easily deceived.

3. Sexual Exploitation Traps

These job listings recruit under titles such as "public relations," "model" or "online companion," advertising generous pay and no educational requirements, while deliberately omitting the actual nature of the work. Job seekers typically only discover the reality once they show up for work, and those who attempt to leave often face obstruction, with personal safety at risk at any time. The hallmark of these advertisements is enticing conditions paired with vague details, which is precisely the warning sign that students need to be taught to recognise.

4. Illegal Work (Money Laundering)

Criminal groups advertise on social media with claims such as "earn money from home" or "make hundreds a day," essentially luring job seekers into providing their bank accounts for use as dummy accounts to facilitate money laundering. In recent years, similar tactics have also been used to deceive students into smuggling drugs, participating in online fraud, or selling counterfeit goods online, a situation that continues to worsen.

5. Multi-Level Marketing

These schemes attract job seekers with promises of high salaries and generous commissions, persuading them to purchase goods and join a sales network. Income is not derived from selling products, but from continuously recruiting new members and collecting joining fees from them.

6. Fee-Collection Scams

Using the pretext that the applicant's qualifications or experience are insufficient, scammers persuade job seekers to enrol in expensive courses, or under the guise of recruitment, collect various unjustifiable fees such as registration fees, security deposits, administrative fees, uniform cleaning fees and handling fees. In recent years, there have also been cases involving recruitment of people to post fake positive reviews for online shops, with victims tricked into paying hefty membership fees.

7. Overseas Job Scams

One of the most alarming traps in recent years. Criminal operators lure job seekers to Southeast Asian countries with promises of "high-paying positions," "airfare and accommodation included," and "no qualifications required." Advertisements often only provide a social media account as contact information, with no company details disclosed. Upon arrival, victims are held captive and forced to engage in illegal activities such as online fraud, placing their personal safety in grave danger.

8. Loan Traps

Using job titles such as "mystery shopper" as a cover, scammers claim that the role involves testing the service quality of financial companies or helping to transfer overseas company assets to Hong Kong. Victims are deceived into applying for personal loans and handing the money over to the "employer," with assurances that repayment will not be required after completing the job.

9. Investment Scams

Entry-level positions such as clerical or receptionist roles are used to attract job seekers, who are subsequently introduced to "high-return investment products," which are in reality fraudulent instruments. Victims are also encouraged to persuade family members and friends to participate, and ultimately the funds are misappropriated under the pretext of investment losses.

3. How Many Warning Signs Are Hidden in a Job Advertisement?

Beyond understanding the types of scams, what matters even more is teaching students to identify the warning signs within the advertisement itself.

Research shows that when young people encounter job traps, the most common red flag is a salary that is clearly out of line with market rates, followed by requests for sensitive personal information, such as identity card details or bank account information, before an offer is made, and job listings with vague descriptions or an untraceable company background⁶. These three signs are present in almost every type of job scam.

The following signals should prompt an immediate pause:

Salary is significantly higher than the market rate for similar roles
The recruitment advertisement does not list a company name or address
Any form of payment is requested under any pretext (e.g. security deposit, training fee, uniform fee, administrative fee, data fee, account opening fee, etc.)
Submission of identity card, bank account or credit card information is required
Communication through private messaging apps is requested instead of formal channels
An immediate decision is required with no time allowed for consideration

Once students are able to recognise these signals, they will already be equipped to avoid the majority of high-risk situations.

4. What Can Parents and Teachers Concretely Do?

Rather than discovering after the fact that a child has been deceived, a far more effective approach is to proactively open a conversation before they begin their job search.

Parents can browse job advertisements together with their children, analysing which conditions fall within a reasonable range and which look suspicious, while encouraging children to voice their own judgements and reasoning. More importantly, children should know that even if they do fall victim to a scam, telling a parent immediately is far better than bearing the consequences alone. Many victims delay seeking help out of fear of being blamed, allowing losses to compound over time.

Teachers can make use of form teacher periods or career planning lessons to guide students through real case studies and help them develop a framework for analysing job advertisements. In addition to classroom discussion, incorporating targeted cybersecurity courses is an effective supplementary approach, allowing students to consolidate their judgement in a structured learning environment.

If a student suspects they have encountered a job scam, they should immediately call the Hong Kong Police Force's Anti-Deception Coordination Centre hotline at 18222, or contact the Labour Department's Employment Centre for assistance.

Conclusion: Being Equipped Matters More Than Being Warned

Every summer, warnings urging students to "beware of job scams" are never in short supply, but warnings alone have never been enough. Scammers update their tactics every year, and what we give students is often last year's answer.

Genuine protection has never come from a single reminder. It comes from helping students truly understand the operational logic behind scams, to see through the three core manipulation tactics that run through almost every type of fraud: artificial urgency, promises of outsized returns, and deliberately vague details. When students can recognise this underlying logic, they will be able to make clear-headed judgements even as scammers continually change their names and packaging.

If you are looking for a more systematic way to build this kind of critical thinking and digital safety knowledge in students, SEED Foundation's free online self-learning course, "Guardians of the Dataverse," was created for exactly this purpose. Designed as a gamified learning experience for secondary school students, the course covers common threats such as job scams, phishing attacks and AI deepfakes, as well as self-protection strategies in everyday digital contexts including email, social media and online shopping. Quiz components are included to help students confirm they have genuinely understood what they have learned. Equipping students starts with one lesson.

If you are interested, please feel free to contact us for more details.

^References: