The Main Rule

If you have to pay first in order to start earning, it is not a job. Any advance payment for training, account activation, equipment, reserving a place, or improving a résumé is a sign of fraud without exceptions. The employer pays the employee, not the other way around, and this rule has no legitimate deviations in the field of remote work.

Why Schemes with Likes Cannot Be a Job

The most common bait looks like payment for watching videos, liking posts, or marking products on marketplaces. The logic here is simple, and it is enough to calculate. One like from a random person has practically no value for a business, so nobody can pay dozens of hryvnias for it and remain profitable. If the offered payment does not make economic sense for the person who pays, the money is not coming from advertising, but from you. The Cyber Police separately named such fictional positions, including screenshotter, liker, and TikToker, and these names themselves are a marker of a scheme.

How the Scheme Works from the Inside

The mechanics are almost the same everywhere, and knowing its sequence allows you to stop in time. First, you are given several simple tasks and are actually paid a small amount, usually from one hundred to five hundred hryvnias. This is the most important stage, since a real payment completely removes suspicion and creates the feeling that the system works. Then the tasks become more complicated, and there is a need to activate something, unlock something, or make a deposit. The explanations sound plausible, that is, they concern account verification, buying a product with a subsequent refund, or access to more expensive orders. The scheme with receiving a refund for an allegedly purchased product is described separately by the Cyber Police, and in one of the recorded cases, a woman transferred about seventy-five thousand hryvnias in this way. Then the amounts increase, and when you try to withdraw what you have earned, new conditions appear. Eventually, the contact disappears. Another option is phishing, when after trust has been established, you are sent a link supposedly for receiving a payment, and entering your card details there ends with money being charged.

Fake Job Vacancies

The second major category works through job-search websites. A typical scenario looks like this. You post a résumé, and a few hours later someone writes to you in a messenger, presenting themselves as a recruiter from a well-known company. The offer sounds attractive, that is, remote work, a flexible schedule, a salary noticeably higher than the market rate, and minimal experience requirements. Then a condition appears, that is, to complete training that the employer supposedly pays for, or to purchase software with subsequent compensation. Signs by which such a vacancy can be identified immediately. Communication is moved from the job website straight to a private messenger. The description contains no specific responsibilities, only promises. The salary is excessively high in the absence of qualification requirements. There is no interview, or it is formal. There is no official employment. You are rushed and required to make a decision urgently. You are asked for money at any stage.

The Risk That Almost Nobody Writes About

A separate category of offers looks like legitimate work with money transfers, that is, you are offered to receive payments on your card and forward them further for a small percentage.

This is not earnings, but participation in money laundering, and liability for such actions arises for the cardholder regardless of whether they understood the nature of the transactions. The rule is simple, and it is that your bank card is yours, and any offer to use it for someone else's money is either fraud or involving you in a crime.

How to Check an Employer

Find the company in the state register by its code, and I wrote separately about the procedure for such a check.

Check the company's official website and whether this vacancy is actually listed there. Find the recruiter in professional networks and verify whether they really work for this company. Use the Unified Vacancy Portal of the State Employment Service, which brings together official offers.

Search for the company name together with words about reviews or fraud. Insist on an interview via video call, since schemes are usually limited to written communication.

What Really Works

Now about the methods that really generate income, with honest time frames.

Selling your own things is the fastest option without investment, and it provides one-time money rather than a permanent income. I wrote separately about safe transactions on marketplaces.

Freelancing using an existing skill is the main realistic path. This includes writing, translation, design, video editing, advertising setup, administration, and development. The entry threshold is not money, but the fact that you need to have a skill, and the first months usually go toward a portfolio and the first inexpensive orders. I wrote in detail about the mechanics of income and taxes in this field.

Tutoring and consultations work if you understand a subject, and you can start with one or two people.

Customer support work in companies is a real vacancy, and you should look for it on official platforms, not in messengers.

Content creation generates income not from views, but from advertising and your own products, and it requires months of work before the first money, as I wrote in the material about earning money on social networks.

Affiliate programs work only if you have an audience, that is, they are an addition to the previous point, not an independent method.

About Realistic Expectations

None of the listed methods provides income from the first week, and this is the main difference between real earnings and a scheme. A scheme promises money immediately and without skills. Real work requires either a skill or time to acquire it, and this is exactly why fraudulent offers look more attractive. A realistic period before the first significant money from freelancing is measured in months, and before stable income, in half a year or more. This is not a reason not to start, it is a reason not to quit your current job for the sake of promises.

If You Have Already Transferred Money

Immediately call the bank using the number on the card and block it, since with a quick response it is sometimes possible to stop the transfer. Do not follow any additional links, including those that promise a refund, since this is a continuation of the same scheme. Save all evidence, that is, screenshots of correspondence, phone numbers, account details, times, and amounts. File a report with the Cyber Police through the official website or call 102. Do not remain silent out of shame, since it is precisely silence that allows the same schemes to operate for years. The scale of the problem is large, since according to the results of 2025, law enforcement agencies recorded about forty-nine thousand criminal proceedings under the article on fraud.


Sources

Department of Cyber Police of the National Police of Ukraine, State Employment Service, publications by Ukraine Criminal, Nashe Misto, Dnipro Operatyvnyi