Don’t answer that text. Scammers offering ‘dream jobs’ are vying for your money.

SAN ANTONIO – The offer is your dream job, but the process turns into an identity theft nightmare. People across San Antonio report getting text messages claiming to be from job recruiters.

Turns out, it’s a scam.

The News 4 I-Team looked into this trend, how much money Texans have lost in this scheme, and how you can protect yourself.

The messages come straight to your inbox.

They may start with a simple hello, or the scammer may jump right in with their offer.

A job that you’re apparently perfect for, even though you haven’t applied. A high salary for low-effort work, and tons of vacation, all from the comfort of your home.

“In the last week or so, there were days where I would have about four,” John Massey told us.

“On a daily basis, about two, give or take,” said Lindsay Terzo.

Both San Antonio residents tell us they weren’t surprised to learn this was an employment scam, and that bad actors are working overtime to prey on the economy.

These scams rank second in Texas this year for the number of reports, as well as the amount of money lost.

One San Antonio woman reported that she’s out more than $4,000.

She tells the Better Business Bureau that she accepted a job offer from one of these texts, but the only way to get paid was in cryptocurrency.

Then to receive another check, she had to deposit money into that account. By the time she realized it was a scam, she’d lost all of her savings.

Another resident was able to avoid serious financial damage.

The scammers used the typical playbook, sending a check to her account and asking for screenshots once she received it.

The person on the other end of the text told her to transfer the money to a specific company to buy a computer, a desk, a chair, things you’d typically need for a remote job.

When she didn’t deposit the entire check or transfer the money when the scammer asked, she said they got pushy.

That’s when she reported the issue to her bank.

The model is meant to give scammers access to all of your financial information, and eventually leave you with nothing.

“When you’re applying for a job, you want to put your best foot forward, and you try to check all the boxes and be a good candidate,” said Jason Meza with the Better Business Bureau. “Unfortunately, scammers know that…They play that to their advantage.”

Meza says these scams will continue working unless consumers step up their defenses.

Reporter Jordan Elder had also been getting a ton of these texts, and she is happily employed already.

When she got a message claiming to be from the Carter Recruiting Agency, she asked the person on the other end of the text where they were located.

They responded with an address in Arkansas.

It was a real recruiting agency, but after calling the owner, Jordan learned there was nothing real about that text.

“It’s very scary,” said Cherie Richardson, who has been running Carter Recruiting Agency for decades.

She says several people have called her office after being promised a remote job. Typically, she says the scammers targeted people with disabilities or without transportation.

“This has never happened in the 35 years that I’ve been doing this type of work, and I felt very violated, and I felt very uncomfortable,” Richardson told us.

Richardson says she’s worried about what this might do to her business’ reputation, in Arkansas and beyond, but her biggest concern is how it will impact the people who do fall for the scam.

“I knew that somebody might fall for this scam, and no telling what might the consequences be,” Richardson said.”They were looking for their name, their social security number, their age, their date of birth…”

She and a few other business owners we spoke to say there’s not much they can do to stop scammers from trying to cash in on their reputations.

“I don’t know a way that you can stop this,” Richardson said.

Especially when times are tough and remote jobs are in high demand, it’s easy to fall for a scam like this.

“They lift a lot of logos, they use official-looking documents, a lot of the language checks out, and when you go to double-check the company, they check out,” Meza explained.

The goal is to look believable.

So how can you protect yourself?

“I just ignore and block the message, and I do not respond to it,” Massey says.

Which is what experts recommend too.

Or, if you’re like Lindsay Terzo, you can take a different route.

She received a very detailed recruiting text, offering good money, a flexible schedule, and lots of vacation and holidays.

Terzo says she knew it was a scam, and she wasn’t looking for a job, so she decided to have some fun.

“I said, ‘Sorry, I don’t have any hands to type with. I use a system from 1984 that’s built into a flux capacitor. In order for me to do any kind of work, I’d require a schedule of 7-4 with a minimum salary of $1.2 million a year.”

Unsurprisingly, she got no response.

“And it turned green. So that tells me, they blocked me,” Terzo laughed.

If you think the opportunity could be legit, see if it’s listed on the website the messenger is claiming to be from, or give the company a call.

You can report these texts to your phone company, your bank, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Better Business Bureau.

It helps them see how rampant the problem is getting.

“That could prevent the next person from going down that path,” Meza explained.

But we’re up against new challenges.

“Now, with AI, it’s just gonna get worse, we think, because names can be falsified, but voices can be altered as well,” Meza said.

Remember, scammers are banking on your trust, and your job as a consumer is to make sure they don’t get far enough to cash in.

To report an employment scam to the Better Business Bureau, click here.