Fake Australia job offer on WhatsApp? Seven checks Bangladeshi workers can make before paying

Tips · 2026-10-20 · 10 min read

A Bangladeshi man and woman in a hijab study a phone at home, with a closed passport under his hand.

A fake Australia job offer usually arrives the easy way: a WhatsApp message you never asked for, or a Facebook post with a big salary and only a phone number. Before you reply, remember three facts. Real Home Affairs emails end in @homeaffairs.gov.au, nobody can promise you an Australian visa, and anyone who wants money or your passport before a proper hiring process is a warning sign. Below are the checks Bangladeshi workers can make in minutes, and where to report a scam.

Why Bangladeshi workers see so many of these offers

Immigration New Zealand warns that job offer scams are common in India and South Asia. The Australian High Commission in Dhaka also keeps a scam-safety page for people in Bangladesh, so this is not a rare problem.

Scammers know what a family in Sylhet or Cumilla hopes for: one good job in bidesh. A fake circular may use a real Australian city and a real visa name. What it cannot copy are the official channels, and that is where you catch it.

Warning signs inside the message

Scamwatch, the Australian Government's scam-warning service, lists the signs of a job scam. Read your message against them:

Contact out of nowhere. A stranger writes to you on WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram about a job you never applied for.
Hiring that is too quick. You are "selected" without any interview, or after a short chat.
Money before work. You are asked to pay a "recruitment fee", or to buy training materials, before you start.
A request for your passport. Scamwatch says never to send your passport or identity documents to an employer or recruitment firm unless you are certain they are genuine.

A Facebook "Australia job circular" with no employer details and only a WhatsApp number deserves the same suspicion. One sign means slow down; two means stop.

Promises no genuine employer can make

Some lines prove an offer is false on their own. Home Affairs says no one can promise you an Australian visa for certain, and anyone promising a visa, permanent residency or citizenship is misleading you.

Watch the words as well. Australia does not issue "work permits", visa labels or Labour Market Impact Assessments, so anyone selling one is running a scam. Workers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Malaysia know work permits as normal paperwork, which is why this trick works on them.

The visa type matters too. You cannot work in Australia on an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) or a Visitor visa. An "agent" who says fly on a tourist visa and start work on arrival is setting you up to break the law.

For New Zealand, Immigration New Zealand says a temporary visa does not promise residence, and scammers often overstate how likely residence is.

Who pays for sponsorship, and who never should

In Australia, the sponsoring employer must pay all the costs of becoming a sponsor and nominating a worker, and cannot pass them on to you or your family. Paying an employer to sponsor you is illegal, even when the money is cut from your salary later, and it can lead to visa refusal or cancellation, fines or prison. For the Skills in Demand (subclass 482) visa, you must not have asked for, offered, received or provided a benefit in return for sponsorship in the past 3 years. Our plain-English guide to the 482 visa explains how genuine sponsorship works.

New Zealand is just as clear. Employers there cannot charge you fees for a job or make you pay any of their recruitment costs, including indirectly through a third party. Immigration New Zealand never asks for visa fees to be paid into a bank account; it only takes debit or credit card payment on its forms, or payment at an approved Visa Application Centre.

BMET adds the Bangladesh side: never rely on a dalal or middleman to get a job abroad, because it can lead to losing money and to human trafficking. If someone is offering to sell you the visa itself, read why buying an Australia visa in Bangladesh is a crime for the buyer too.

Check the sender and the paperwork

Fake offers often come with an official-looking "visa approval" letter. The email address and the official checking tools tell you more than any logo.

What you received	Genuine when	Treat as fake when
Email from Australia's Home Affairs	The address ends in @homeaffairs.gov.au	The address does not end in .gov.au
Australian visa grant	You can find it in VEVO, the Home Affairs online visa check	It cannot be found in VEVO
Australian visa application	It is made in ImmiAccount, the only official website for applying	You are asked to apply or pay on any other website
Email from Immigration New Zealand	The address ends in immigration.govt.nz or mbie.govt.nz	The address has any other ending
New Zealand visa	INZ's Visa Verification service confirms it	You are told not to check it
Bangladeshi recruiting agency	BMET's agency list shows its RL number with the status Active	It is missing, or the status is Expired, Cancelled or Suspended

Home Affairs lists more of these tricks on its visa scams page, and Immigration New Zealand does the same on its scam protection page.

Keep your passport in your own hands

A common opening line is "send your passport copy for visa processing". Do not send it to a number you cannot check.

Bangladeshi law backs you here. Under section 31 of the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act, 2013, taking money by falsely promising overseas work, or holding back a migrant's passport, visa or migration papers without lawful reason, is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of at least 1 lakh Taka.

Another trick uses biometrics. In Bangladesh, biometrics for Australian visas are collected by VFS Global, a contracted provider that does not make visa decisions. A biometrics request does not mean a visa has been granted.

How to test a job offer before you say yes

Pay nothing yet. No "file charge", no "processing fee", no deposit to a personal bKash or bank account.
Ask how you were chosen. If nobody has looked at your CV, asked about your trade or interviewed you, the "selection" is not real.
Check every email address. Home Affairs mail ends in @homeaffairs.gov.au; Immigration New Zealand mail ends in immigration.govt.nz or mbie.govt.nz.
Check any Bangladeshi agency in BMET's list. Search BMET's RAIMS list of recruiting agencies for its name and RL number, and confirm the licence status says Active. Under section 9(1) of the Act no one may recruit without a licence, and a person who claims to be an agency's sub-agent without registering faces 1 year's imprisonment or a fine of 50 thousand to 2 lakh Taka.
Check the visa yourself. Use VEVO for Australia or Visa Verification for New Zealand.
Check who is helping with the visa. In Australia, anyone giving immigration assistance must be a registered migration agent, a legal practitioner or an exempt person, and a real agent has a MARN on the OMARA register. In New Zealand, advisers must be licensed by the Immigration Advisers Authority unless exempt, and you do not have to use one at all.
Save the evidence. Screenshot the post, the chat, the phone number and any payment request.

Where to report a fake offer

The Australian High Commission in Dhaka asks people to report scam agents to the local police and to the Probashbandhu hotline of the Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment on 16135, toll free inside Bangladesh. If you are already working in the Gulf or Malaysia, the same 24/7 call centre answers on +88 09610 102 030 from abroad.

If a licensed agency took your money, BMET's citizen charter lets you complain at no cost with a signed application and evidence to the Director General of BMET, and it settles the complaint within 30 working days after an inquiry and hearing. Our step-by-step guide on how to complain to BMET after a dalal or agency cheats you covers both official routes.

The High Commission's staff cannot help with general visa enquiries; Home Affairs runs a Global Service Centre on +61 2 6196 0196.

Common mistakes Bangladeshi workers make with job offers

Trusting a post because a cousin shared it. Forwarding does not make it real.
Paying a "small" first fee. Scams often start low, then ask for more.
Sending a passport scan and NID to an unknown WhatsApp number.
Believing in a "work permit" for Australia. Australia does not issue them, so the paper itself is proof of a scam.
Planning to work on a visitor visa. It is not allowed, and people who engage in visa fraud through a scam agent risk refusal or cancellation and a ban from Australia for up to 10 years.
Skipping the licence check. BMET's list shows whether a licence is still Active.

What a genuine route looks like

A real offer is slower than a fake one: a job advert with clear requirements, an English CV and trade certificates, an interview, then an offer where the employer handles sponsorship, followed by your visa and BMET emigration clearance.

On JobsAbroad Bangladesh, every listing comes from an employer prepared to sponsor the work visa of the person it hires, and there is no fee to apply. We are not a licensed recruiting agency or a migration agent: the employer decides whom to hire and the government decides the visa. You can see what a real listing looks like on our sponsored chef job in Brisbane or this carpenter vacancy in Cairns.

Because a real employer reads your CV, it pays to have a clear one in English. A tool such as Build AI CV can help you set out your trade, your years of experience and your Gulf or Malaysia work.

Frequently asked questions

How can I tell if an Australia job offer on WhatsApp is fake?

Be careful when a stranger contacts you about a job you never applied for, selects you without an interview, or asks for a recruitment fee or your passport. Those are the warning signs Scamwatch lists.

Is it normal to pay money to get sponsored for an Australian job?

No. The sponsoring employer must pay the costs of sponsoring and nominating you and cannot pass them on to you. Paying an employer for sponsorship is illegal, even through salary deductions, and can lead to visa refusal or cancellation.

How do I check if an email is really from Home Affairs?

Look at the full address, not the name shown. Real Home Affairs emails end in @homeaffairs.gov.au, and any email claiming to be from Home Affairs that does not end in .gov.au is a scam.

Where can I report a fake overseas job offer in Bangladesh?

The Australian High Commission in Dhaka asks people to report scam agents to the local police and to the Probashbandhu hotline on 16135, toll free in Bangladesh. From abroad, the same call centre answers on +88 09610 102 030, around the clock.

How can I check whether a Bangladeshi recruiting agency is licensed?

Search BMET's RAIMS list of recruiting agencies. It shows each agency's RL licence number, name, address, phone, licence status and validity date. Only deal with an agency whose status shows Active, and never with an unregistered middleman.

Key takeaways

No one can promise you an Australian visa, and Australia does not issue work permits.
Sponsorship costs belong to the employer; paying for a job or a sponsor is illegal in Australia and New Zealand.
Check emails: @homeaffairs.gov.au for Australia, immigration.govt.nz or mbie.govt.nz for New Zealand.
Keep your passport and NID to yourself until you are certain the employer is genuine.
Check any agency on BMET's RAIMS list, and report scams to the police and Probashbandhu on 16135.

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