Scam Checker
Back to all scam alerts and blog posts

How to Verify a Company Is Real Before Accepting a Job

By Published
  • job-scams
  • recruitment
  • employment-scam
  • verification

Disclaimer: This post is general information, not legal or financial advice.

A fake employer can copy logos, build a website, and even produce a contract that looks like the real thing. What they can't do is exist in the public registries that real businesses have to be in. That asymmetry is your friend.

Here is the 7-step check you can run on any job offer in under fifteen minutes.

1. Find the company on the right business register

| Country | Register | |---|---| | UK | Companies House | | Australia | ABN Lookup | | US | Secretary of State website for the company's claimed state | | EU | National business registers (e.g. bizportal.gov.ie, Bundesanzeiger, EU Business Registers Interconnection System) | | India | MCA21 |

If the company is not registered, stop. There is no "in process" — registration is a precondition for hiring you.

2. Check the company website's domain age

Use a WHOIS lookup (whois.domaintools.com, who.is). A "trusted global brand established in 2008" whose domain was registered six weeks ago is not real. Real domain age and claimed company age should match.

3. Find at least three real employees on LinkedIn

Search the company on LinkedIn. Look at the employees tab.

  • Multiple profiles older than a year, with proper photos and unrelated activity? Real.
  • Three profiles created last month, no posts, identical formatting, all listing the same job title? Fake.

4. Verify the recruiter independently

Find the recruiter on LinkedIn — but search for them, do not click their link in the email. Does their profile list this company as their current employer? Is the profile mature? Any second-degree connections you trust who can vouch?

5. Match the email domain to the website

The recruiter's email should end with the company's real domain. hr.amazon.recruit@gmail.com is not Amazon. hr@amazon-hr-careers.com is also not Amazon.

6. Phone the company on its public number

This single step kills most fake-job campaigns. Find the company's phone number on its real website (not in the recruiter's email signature). Call it. Ask reception or HR whether the recruiter and the job are real. Scammers cannot intercept a phone call to a real switchboard.

7. Run the messages through the scam checker

Paste the offer letter or recruiter messages into our free scam checker. It scans for urgency phrasing, payment requests, OTP harvesting, and known fake-recruiter scripts. For the full job-scam picture, read the job scam checker guide.

When something fails the check

If any single step fails — no business registration, no real employees, generic email, refused phone verification — treat the offer as fake. Don't share documents, don't cash a cheque, don't buy equipment, and do not engage further. Report it to the platform you saw the listing on (LinkedIn, Indeed, Seek) and to your country's fraud body.

Where to Report

A real company will pass all seven checks. A fake one will fail several of them in the first three minutes — saving you the worst hour of your year.

External sources and references