Fake recruiter or HR department claiming a job offer is contingent on a background check processing fee that must be paid before the offer letter can be released — advance-fee fraud targeting job seekers; real employment background checks are paid by the employer, never requiring candidate upfront fee payment via email link.
employment-background-check-fee-phish
What this tier means
High-confidence threat indicator — phishing, impersonation, BEC, or scam pattern. Strong contributor to the trash decision.
How Gorganizer detects this
Fake recruiter, HR department, or staffing agency claiming a job offer is contingent on a background check that requires a processing fee payment from the candidate before the formal offer letter can be released — advance-fee fraud targeting job seekers and the unemployed. Real employment background checks are entirely employer-paid, conducted through accredited providers (Sterling Talent Solutions, HireRight, Checkr, First Advantage) and are never charged to the candidate; federal law (FCRA) requires employer disclosure and authorization without requiring candidate payment. This is distinct from the job-offer-check-deposit-phish (fake check deposit / money laundering) pattern — this targets the background-check-processing-fee / offer-letter-withheld pretext. Detection: background check/background screening + processing fee/pay fee + before offer letter can be released vocabulary + no List-Unsubscribe + no In-Reply-To + not protected sender. Trash score: +4. Source: GC1-R27; FTC job scam advisory 2025; EEOC background check guidance; FBI IC3 employment fraud advance-fee patterns; FCRA 15 USC 1681b employer requirements.
False-positive guard
Every signal in Gorganizer feeds a multi-module score — never a sole verdict. This is a threat-tier signal — it adds a strong contribution to the trash score. The full pipeline still requires convergence across multiple modules + a margin over the safety floor before deletion happens, and Gmail's trash (30-day recovery) is always used — never permanent delete.
About the scoring engine
Gorganizer's scoring engine emits 2,143+ signals across six modules — headers, sender, subject, body, attachments, and structural metadata. Every email is scored by every module independently; the final verdict requires multiple modules to agree and the trash score to beat the safety floor by a margin.
Sacred safety guards — never delete starred emails, replies, calendar invites, receipts/invoices, or attachments — apply unconditionally regardless of any signal.
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