One-way interview scam red-flags card (printable)

A one-way interview scam red-flags card is a short, printable checklist of the things a real employer never asks for before you record a video interview, plus a few quick checks to confirm an invite is genuine. The card below is the printable companion to is this one-way interview a scam. That page explains the reasoning. This page is the thing you keep open while you decide whether to hit record.

Use it when you get a link to record a one-way, on-demand, or pre-recorded interview from a sender you cannot fully place. Read down the card. If even one red flag is present, stop and run the three checks at the bottom before you record anything.

The card is built to travel. Print it and stick it by your desk. Screenshot it for your phone. Or copy the code block below and paste it into a group chat so a friend can gut-check an invite while you are still staring at it.

The card

Copy this block as-is. It is plain text, so it pastes cleanly into a message, a notes app, or a doc.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  IS THIS ONE-WAY INTERVIEW A SCAM?  ·  red-flags card       │
│  The tool's name is not the tell. The sender is.            │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│  STOP IF ANY OF THESE ARE TRUE                              │
│                                                             │
│  [ ] Money moves FROM you. A fee for equipment, a paid      │
│      background check, training you buy, or gift cards.     │
│      → Real employers never charge you to get hired.        │
│                                                             │
│  [ ] They want bank or routing details before an offer,     │
│      or a check to deposit and partly send back.            │
│                                                             │
│  [ ] They ask you to scan your face, upload your ID, or     │
│      give your SSN as step one, before anyone has talked    │
│      to you.                                                │
│                                                             │
│  [ ] The link is off. A lookalike login page, a misspelled  │
│      domain, or "download our app" from outside the app     │
│      stores. Read the real URL, not the link text.          │
│                                                             │
│  [ ] The recruiter emails from Gmail / Outlook, or the      │
│      reply-to does not match the company. Warning sign,     │
│      not proof.                                             │
│                                                             │
│  [ ] It moved too fast. You never applied, the "offer"      │
│      came in hours, the pay is high for vague work, and     │
│      the message pushes you to act NOW.                     │
│                                                             │
│  [ ] The "live" recruiter video feels synthetic. Lips lag   │
│      the audio, the face warps at the edges, lighting       │
│      never changes.                                         │
│                                                             │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│  WHAT A REAL EMPLOYER WILL NEVER ASK FOR AT THIS STAGE      │
│  · Money, gift cards, or a check to deposit                 │
│  · Your bank or routing number before an offer              │
│  · Your SSN or a photo of your ID before anyone interviews  │
│  · A payment for equipment, software, or training           │
│                                                             │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│  BEFORE YOU RECORD: 3 CHECKS, ABOUT 2 MINUTES               │
│                                                             │
│  1. Find the role on the company's OWN careers page.        │
│     Go to the site directly, not via the link you got.      │
│     Not listed there? Treat the invite as suspect.          │
│                                                             │
│  2. Read the sender's FULL email address, not the name.     │
│     Real recruiters use name@company.com. One wrong         │
│     letter is enough to be fake.                            │
│                                                             │
│  3. Paste a distinctive line from the message into a        │
│     search engine with the word "scam." Recycled scripts    │
│     show up in other people's reports.                      │
│                                                             │
│  Any check fails → do not record. Walk away.                │
│                                                             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Why each red flag is on the card

Every line maps to something real employers do not do. It is drawn from how these schemes tend to run and from the kinds of job-scam warnings consumer-protection bodies publish. The longer reasoning behind each one lives on the scams page. The short version:

• Money from you is the cleanest line. Real hiring pays you. It never charges you. A fee, a paid background check, or a gift-card ask is a scam every time, with no exceptions to weigh.
• Financial details before an offer are not part of any normal screening. Direct deposit gets set up after you are hired, through HR, not during a recorded interview. The “deposit this check and send part of it back” version always ends with the check bouncing and you owing the money.
• A face scan, ID upload, or SSN as step one is the “scan your face” version people search for most. Some real platforms verify identity later, after an offer, through a named service. As the very first step, before any human has spoken to you, it is data harvesting.
• An off link or an app download is how a fake page collects your login or your data. Read the destination URL, not the friendly link text. Real invites lead to the company’s domain or a recognizable platform.
• A Gmail recruiter is a warning sign, not a verdict. On its own it proves nothing. Stacked with any other flag, it means slow down and verify.
• Speed and urgency are the engine of almost every scam, because slowing down is exactly how you catch them. A real process has steps and a few days of breathing room.
• A synthetic-looking recruiter is newer and rarer, but deepfake video has started to show up in hiring fraud. If a “live” video feels wrong, end it and reach the company through its real website.

How to customize it

The card works as-is, but you can tailor it:

• Add your country’s fraud line. In the US, that is the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Swap in your local equivalent so the next reader knows where to report.
• Trim it for a specific person. If you are sending it to one friend about one suspicious invite, keep only the red flags that apply and the three checks. Shorter cards get read.
• Pin the three checks alone. If you just want a desk reminder, the “before you record” block stands on its own. It settles most cases without the full list.

If you would rather not eyeball it, paste the suspicious message into the free scam-check tool for a quick second opinion. And once you have cleared the invite, the calmer next read is is it actually an AI interview, which explains what these tools really do with your recording.