Common EB-3 Scams and How to Avoid Them

Wherever people want something as valuable as a US green card, fraud follows. EB-3 scams are a global industry precisely because the real program is legitimate - scammers borrow its vocabulary to sell fiction. Here are the schemes we see most, and the simple checks that defeat them.

Scam 1: Paying for the job offer

The most common scam by far: a "recruiter" or "agency" offers a US job with green card sponsorship for a fee - often thousands of dollars, sometimes in installments that keep growing. Remember the one rule that cuts through everything: nobody legitimate charges a worker for a job offer. Real employers pay to find workers; US law even requires the employer to bear the labor certification costs. The moment money is requested for the offer itself, you are not in a recruitment process - you are in a scam.

Scam 2: The guaranteed green card

No honest person can guarantee a US visa or green card - not an attorney, not an employer, not an agency, and certainly not a stranger on social media. Decisions belong to DOL, USCIS and consular officers, and cases fail for many reasons. "100% success rate," "approval guaranteed," and "special relationship with the embassy" are all the same lie in different clothes.

Scam 3: Fake employers and cloned companies

Fraudsters impersonate real US companies - real logos, spoofed email domains one letter off, even fake video interviews. Checks that work:

• Look up the company independently and call the number on their official website, not the number in the email.
• Verify the email domain character by character.
• Real hiring involves questions about your skills; scams rush straight to fees and documents.
• Search DOL's public disclosure data - employers who file labor certifications appear in it.

Scam 4: The notario and the fake lawyer

In many countries, people sell US immigration "legal services" without being licensed. In the US itself, a "notario" is not an attorney. Only licensed attorneys and DOJ-accredited representatives may represent you before USCIS. Verify a US lawyer through their state bar's online lookup - it takes two minutes and scammers fail it every time.

Scam 5: Visa-lottery and government-fee phishing

Emails claiming "you have been selected" for a green card you never applied for, or demanding urgent government fees by gift card, wire, or crypto: delete them. Real government fees are paid through official channels - pay.gov, the official visa fee systems - never to a personal account. The government does not contact winners of anything by WhatsApp.

Scam 6: Document "improvement"

Some agents offer to fix your file - a backdated experience letter, an inflated diploma. This is not a shortcut but a landmine: misrepresentation can permanently bar you from the US. A weaker honest file beats a stronger fake one, always.

Your five-point safety checklist

If you have already been targeted

Stop payments, keep every message, and report: the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and local police. If a real company is being impersonated, tell them too - they often act fast. Understanding what a legitimate process looks like is your best vaccine: our guides to how US visa sponsorship works and who pays for what in an EB-3 case describe the real thing.

Why these scams work - and why knowledge beats them

EB-3 fraud thrives on three ingredients: distance (the victim cannot walk into the office), time (a multi-year process hides the lie for years), and hope. Scammers deliberately mirror real steps - they may show you a genuine-looking "PERM receipt" or "case number" that checks out nowhere. The defense is structural, not cleverness: money flows from employers to find workers, never the reverse; every real case leaves verifiable traces in government systems; and every real timeline is slow and uncertain. Internalize those three facts and most scams collapse in the first conversation. Share them with friends and family too - scammers often reach victims through trusted intermediaries who were themselves deceived first.

This is general information, not legal advice. Official sources: uscis.gov (avoid scams section), dol.gov and travel.state.gov.

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