Is a remote bookkeeper job that asks me to handle client funds a scam?

Money-mule recruitment targeting people looking for bookkeeper, accounts-assistant, or finance-admin roles is common. The job description mentions handling or processing payments as part of the role. Once hired, you receive transfers into your personal account and are told to send them onward, keeping a commission. The incoming funds are almost always proceeds of fraud or money laundering, and you are acting as a conduit that puts distance between the criminals and their victims.

The legitimate-sounding job title is the disguise. No real company routes client money through an employee's personal bank account — businesses have their own accounts, payment processors, and audit requirements, and doing otherwise would breach basic accounting controls. The 'commission' framing exists to make the arrangement feel like payroll rather than laundering. Some victims work for weeks believing the role is genuine, right up until their bank freezes the account.

The consequences fall on the mule, not the recruiter. Banks are highly attuned to these patterns and may close your accounts, apply a fraud marker that follows you for years and makes opening accounts or obtaining credit difficult, or refer your activity to law enforcement. Even if you were unaware of the criminal origin, forwarding funds you did not earn can constitute a criminal offence. If a role involves money passing through your personal account, decline it — there is no legitimate version of that arrangement.