You have finally got your dream job opportunity!
You posted your resume online and a representative of a great company calls you and invites you for an interview. You have to go to their fancy HR office downtown, which they say is separate from their regular offices, and have an interview with the manager.
The interview goes well, but at the end you feel the manager has some reservations about you. Finally, he tells you that you are potentially a good candidate, but in order to move into the second phase of the interview, he recommends that you take a prerequisite course, called something fancy as well (usually an acronym).
This is where all the victims fall for the scam. Desperate that they might lose a great job while others take or already have the course under their belt, they agree to pay a couple of hundred dollars for a course that doesn’t exist.
Scammers usually rent the so-called HR office for two weeks at the time, wherever they can pay the landlord in cash, leaving no trail behind. All the victims are called and brought there “for interview” during those two weeks.
How to avoid: just as in many other cases, never pay for a job; the job should pay you.