The Department of Migrant Workers said in May 2026 that it has taken down more than 200,000 fake overseas-job postings since 2020. 146,871 came off Facebook. 57,557 came off TikTok. The crackdown is run with Meta Philippines and TikTok Philippines and is set to grow with help from the Department of Information and Communications Technology.
For Filipinos already in Singapore looking to help cousins, siblings or friends find legitimate work overseas, the takedown is welcome news. It also tells you that for every legitimate posting you see, several fake ones got pulled the same week. Knowing how to spot the difference matters.
This article focuses on red flags that show up in Singapore-themed fake postings, because that is the cluster that hits the Filipinos around you.
The most common Singapore scam scripts
A few patterns repeat across the takedowns reported by the DMW.
The Cambodia or Myanmar pivot. The ad promises a call-centre job in Singapore at S$2,500 to S$4,000 a month. The applicant is flown in as a tourist, told the office is "elsewhere in the region", and is then trafficked to Cambodia, Myanmar or Laos to run cryptocurrency scams. The DMW has flagged this as the fastest-growing trafficking pattern out of the Philippines. Singapore is the lure; Singapore is rarely the destination.
The fake DMW recruiter. The poster claims to be a DMW-accredited recruiter and asks for placement fees of P50,000 to P200,000 upfront. The DMW does not recruit. Licensed agencies cannot collect placement fees from Filipino domestic workers, household service workers, or seafarers at all. For other roles, the legal placement fee cap is published on dmw.gov.ph; any agency quoting you "fast track for a higher fee" is breaking the law.
The "direct hire" Singapore household. The ad shows a Singapore HDB or condo photo and promises S$700 to S$900 a month as a helper, with the family paying for everything. The catch: you are told to fly in on a tourist visa and "convert" on arrival. There is no legal conversion of a tourist arrival into a Work Permit for foreign domestic workers in Singapore. Every legitimate FDW deployment goes through a licensed agency and a verified contract at the Migrant Workers Office at the embassy on Nassim Road.
The Lucky Plaza office that does not exist. A poster claims to operate from a Lucky Plaza or Peninsula Plaza office in Singapore, takes an interview fee or document fee by GCash or Western Union, then goes silent. Lucky Plaza has many legitimate offices but it also gets used as a marketing prop. Verify any address by calling the listed phone number from a separate device, then cross-checking it on the MWO Singapore website.
The five-second check
If you see an overseas job posting in your feed, run this check before you forward it to anyone.
Look up the agency on dmw.gov.ph. The DMW publishes a list of licensed recruitment agencies. If the agency is not on the list, it cannot legally deploy OFWs from the Philippines. Hit the search bar; it is two clicks.
Look at the contact information. Real agencies have a landline, a fixed office address, and an official email on a company domain (not gmail or yahoo). A Facebook page with no phone number is a flag.
Look at the fees. If the ad asks for any fee before you have signed a contract verified by the Migrant Workers Office or POLO, walk away. If the ad asks for a placement fee for a domestic worker, household service worker, or seafarer position, it is illegal regardless of the agency.
Look at the destination process. Legitimate Singapore deployment for an FDW goes through a Singapore-licensed maid agency, MOM work permit application, and Migrant Workers Office verification before you fly. Anything that compresses or skips a step is wrong.
