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I am a teenager looking for a job to earn some side income while studying, but I am very uneducated on bank transfers and such. I found this job offer and I do not know if this is legitimate or a scam, so help would be greatly appreciated.

This was the job offer: Employer from another country has many customers in my country and wants an assistant to receive their money and transfer to him, and assistant would get tips for every transaction.

It is an easy job and pays well so it feels like something too good to be true, but I am quite 'dumb' in this topic so I cannot make the correct judgement. Is this legitimate or a scam?

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    no employer is looking for an assistant to be the custodian of its money.
    – quid
    Apr 8, 2019 at 17:05
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    You are likely being used as an unwitting mule in a money laundering scheme. You should walk away, immediately. Best case, it is just some white collar crime. Worst case, it is organized crime.
    – sofa general
    Apr 8, 2019 at 20:56
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    Your instincts are correct. Ignoring the fact that this offer is shady as all get out, a legit company would want to hire someone with degrees and certifications in international finance for a job like this. Not a teenager who's still in school and was (presumably) found over the internet. Think about it from the company's perspective: hiring an unknown for something like this is basically asking for their accounts to be drained. It makes no sense, and that's how you know it's a scam.
    – Steve-O
    Apr 9, 2019 at 15:16

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That sounds like an attempt a money laundering or direct scam.

  1. Money laundering: criminals do crimes and acquire "dirty" funds. They transfer them to you, most likely in cash, after which you transfer them to employer, thus employer receives "clean" funds, not traceable back to the criminals. You go to prison as an accomplice, foreign employer walks free.
  2. Scam/theft: you get $1000 from person A, transfer to employer, then employer says: "hey where is the rest of it, we agreed to $2000!". Now person A comes to you with baseball bat saying you stole $1000 and demand the payment. You lose kneecaps and/or money.
  3. Another version of scam: you get $1000 from person A, transfer it to Employer, get $100 as a fee. Week later you are asked by person A to help out: send $10000 to Employer, because person A is waiting on the money. But you have nothing to worry about, you'll get $1000 immediately and $10.000 back week later! You might get your fee, but will lose $8900 forever

You can get a taste of most common scams by searching this website for questions about scams. In general, like with food safety: "when in doubt -- throw it out"

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    option 4 : you get $1100, transfer $1000 forward through some non-reversible means. Deposit of $1100 is rejected, you are left holding the bag to the tune of $900
    – GOATNine
    Apr 8, 2019 at 17:21
  • shouldn't it be $1000 ?
    – xyious
    Apr 8, 2019 at 19:12
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    given he is a teenager.... it doesn't sound like he has a lot of money to scam. They are probably looking for someone without a criminal record. won't be on anyone's radar.... which suggests money laundering...
    – sofa general
    Apr 8, 2019 at 20:58
  • @sofageneral If he makes a bank account, gets a reversible payment of say $1000, and sends $900 where they tell him, they just scammed him out of $900 he never even had. He's still on the hook for that, even if he never actually had enough money to cover it in the first place; because the transfer between his account to the receiver was a real transaction that he made, and odds are it was made in such a way that the banks cant reverse it.
    – JMac
    Apr 10, 2019 at 13:47
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It's a scam. One of two kinds of scams.

One kind is the "money laundering" scam. The money paid into your account comes from drug dealing, for example. If you get caught, it's most likely jailtime for you.

The other kind is money paid into your account from hacked bank accounts, stolen cheques and so on. The money goes into your account, you pay most of it to the "employer", and then the bank figures out what is happening, takes the money that went into your account away, and you are liable for the money you paid out. That kind of scam steals directly from you.

Basically, anything asking you to pay money out of your own bank account is a scam.

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