Amanda thought she had found the dream WFH job when she received a call from an Indeed ‘recruiter’… now she’s $48,000 in the hole

A woman who believed she had found the perfect work-from-home job has lost tens of thousands of dollars after realising it was a scam. 

Queensland woman Amanda Peters, 44, received a text from Isla who claimed to be a recruiter from the jobs website Indeed.

She claimed several recruiters had seen her profile on the platform and were asking if Ms Peters was interested in a WFH position. 

The equine business manager told Daily Mail Australia it didn’t seem out of the ordinary because she had updated her profile on Indeed the week before, as she was after a WFH side-job to ‘make ends meet’.

After saying she was interested last week, she was given the details of another woman on WhatsApp who explained the job was working for a movie platform where all she had to do was give films a five-star review.

‘She basically said I’ll train you and we’ll go through it,’ Ms Peters said. 

‘That was about six hours all up of training. Walking me through what I had to do on the website.

‘They have terms and conditions, they have facts, it’s a website. It’s very well done. It’s got all the Disney animations stuff on – it looks legit. Very elaborate.’

To make the scam appear even more legitimate, Ms Peters was invited to join a WhatsApp group that had 15 people in it. 

‘Obviously I know now that it’s AI or a bot or something in the background,’ she said.

‘But at the time, you feel like you’re in a bit of a community. You’ve got people talking to you and encouraging you.’

The work involved about three hours a day, which suited Ms Peters and her busy schedule which included another job.

‘I thought I was going to have to sit down and watch things, and basically they said to me “no, these companies are basically paying us to get five star reviews”,’ she said.

Ms Peters explained that people working for the platform needed to invest a small amount of money – $100 – in order to perform the daily tasks assigned to them.  

‘You get your first set of tasks which is 40 reviews,’ she said.

‘You do those, you earn commissions on every review that you do, and you pull all your money out at the end, including the $100 that you started with.’

The 44-year-old said it worked well for the first four days, earning around $40 – $50 a day – which was paid into a crypto account they told her to set up.

The ‘normal’ payment amounts were another move to make it look legitimate, because they weren’t promising copious amounts of money, making it ‘feel realistic’. 

‘Day five came around and they deposited my “pay”, which I was unable to remove,’ she said.

‘So I asked them how can I get my money out.

‘They said “you need to complete today’s tasks. And then you can pull your money out”.’

Ms Peters said she was then offered ‘packages’ that included two or three reviews – but they required more money to access. 

‘The more money you have in the platform, the more they can get you for,’ she said.

‘When you do the first review it takes all your money. So when you want to do the second review in the package, you’ve got to reinvest.

‘So if I have $900 in there, they want me to put in $900 to complete the next review. Then you get hit with another package before you finish your tasks. 

‘And the next thing you know, they’re wanting $26,000 off you to get your money out.’

Ms Peters said the money paid to unlock the tasks soon added up quickly and that’s when things went horribly wrong.

‘I was at the point where I had one task left to complete and then I could pull all my money out. At this stage I was $10,000 in’ she said.

‘So I borrowed an additional $10,000 and I completed my tasks, and I went to pull my money out – but it wouldn’t let me.

‘The platform had reset back to the start of my 40 tasks. And then they’re saying you have to complete your tasks to pull your money out.

‘But those tasks required the money again.’

After contacting customer service on WhatsApp, Ms Peters was informed there was nothing they could do because ‘the platform is the way the platform is and we can’t alter it’.

By this stage, the equine business manager had deposited two lots of $10,000 on December 10 via the scammer’s crypto account, but on the Wednesday they gave her a task package that required an additional $20,000 to unlock her funds.  

‘I had $20,000 dollars in there and that’s when it reset, so I put the extra $20,000 in,’ Ms Peters said.

Ms Peters now owes her partner $48,000. 

‘I’m not doing very well to be honest. I’m just trying to figure out how I can just pay my mortgage this month,’ she said.

‘And possibly buy my niece a birthday and Christmas present.’

The 44-year-old, who was also doing bond cleaning on the side because she was already struggling, broke down in tears as she said she was ’emotionally drained’. 

‘I don’t feel like I’ve got anything left to give at the moment,’ Ms Peters said.  

‘The scammers are really going for people who are looking for work, who are struggling. 

‘I’m only looking for extra work because I need it. So they’re targeting people who need to make money, vulnerable people.’

Ms Peters said the whole process has ‘messed up her mind’.

‘Even sitting here now, I am going in my head “Am I reporting this as a scam and it wasn’t?” My head it so screwed,’ she said.

But she wants to warn other Aussies and she can’t believe she fell for the scam after being so savvy and ‘self-sufficient’ all of her life, including owning her own property. 

‘Just be careful. It looks legit, they’re so clever. I just wish there was someway I could stop it from happening to anyone else,’ Ms Peters said.

A GoFundMe has been started so Ms Peters can pay her mortgage, groceries and bills – as well as pay her partner back.