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"Work from home, just pay the training fee first": the job that takes your money instead o

A tempting ad, easy tasks, profits piling up on "the platform", then a deposit or a fee to withdraw. The account closes and the money is gone.

Kansel2 min read

Hands typing on a laptop at a home desk

It starts with an ad

"Hiring remote staff, 3 hours a day, 300 to 700 EGP daily, no experience needed." On Facebook or TikTok, or in a WhatsApp message from an unknown number. You send your name, they reply fast and politely, and add you to a group of people "already working" who post screenshots of their earnings.

The work is real and easy at first: like a post, rate a product, watch a video. And they really do pay, small amounts, to your wallet. That's the part that buys your trust.

Then the trap

After a few days the tasks become "paid tasks": you pay 100 EGP to earn 130. Then 500. Then 2,000. Your profits grow on "the platform", but when you try to withdraw: you need to finish the level, or pay a withdrawal fee, or "tax". In the end the group disappears, the account closes, and everything you paid came from your own pocket.

Another shape of the same trap: a "respectable company" with an office and a commercial register that asks for an application fee, a training fee, or "insurance" on equipment, and a photo of your ID. A Youm7 investigation in May 2026 found that most numbers in such ads belong to the same people, and the same numbers had appeared earlier under other factory names.

And in February 2025 a platform that paid subscribers for "daily tasks" like watching videos vanished overnight, claiming it had been hacked, leaving thousands in Egypt who had paid to "level up".

Any job that asks you to pay in order to work is not a job.

How to recognise it

  • Money paid before you earn: application, training, insurance, account activation, withdrawal fees.
  • Contact only on WhatsApp or Telegram, no email at the company's domain, no interview.
  • A group full of people posting earnings. Most of them are the network itself.
  • Profits on "a platform" rather than in your bank account, and withdrawal always has a condition.
  • A request for your ID photo or card details "for the contract".

What to do

  1. Don't pay a pound. If they ask for any fee, that's all you need to know.
  2. Look the company up by name: an official site, an address, an email at the same domain. And search its name with the word "scam".
  3. If you paid: stop any further transfers now, keep screenshots of the chats and transfers, and report to the cybercrime police (hotline 108). Don't delete the conversations; they are evidence.
  4. Report the number in Kansel so the ad itself doesn't reach the next person.

Sources

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