Fake job offer letter: how to check whether a job offer in India is real (2026)

How to verify a job offer letter in India in ten minutes: check the sender's domain, the company's CIN or GST number on the government registry, the offer's terms, and the one rule that catches nearly every scam — a real employer never asks for money.

Last updated 3 September 2026. Competitor pricing and plan limits are re-verified against each vendor’s own pages.

A job offer letter is almost certainly fake if it asks for money — a registration fee, a security deposit, a training charge, a laptop payment — before you start. No genuine employer in India charges a candidate to be hired.

To verify a real one: confirm the sender's email domain matches the company's website, look up the company's CIN on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal or its GSTIN on the GST portal, and call the company through a number from its own website, not from the letter.

On ofper, every public company page shows a Verified badge only after the company proved control of its domain, and a Registered badge only after its registration documents were reviewed; anything else on the page is marked as self-declared.

The one rule: a real employer never asks for money

Every common job scam in India ends the same way: a payment. It is called a registration fee, a document verification charge, a security deposit refundable on joining, a training fee, a laptop or uniform cost, or a fee to a consultant who arranged the offer. The name changes; the request does not. A genuine offer costs the candidate nothing, and any request for payment, however small or however official the letterhead, ends the conversation.

Check the sender's domain

Look at the address the letter came from, not the display name. An offer from a company whose website is acme.com will come from an address at acme.com. Offers from Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook addresses, or from a domain that resembles the company's with a letter changed, are not from the company. Scammers register look-alike domains for this reason, so read the domain character by character.

Check the company's registration

Find the company's CIN (Corporate Identity Number) on its own website or in the letter, and search it on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal under company master data; the registered name and status should match
If the letter shows a GSTIN, search it on the GST portal; the legal name should match the company
For an LLP, the LLPIN can be checked on the same MCA portal
A letter with no registration details at all is not automatically fake, but a company that refuses to give them when asked is

Check the offer itself

You interviewed with a named person, and the letter names the same role and the same person or team
The CTC is broken down, and the figure matches what was discussed; an unusually high offer for the role is a common lure
The letter has a joining date, a location, a reporting manager and a response deadline
The signature belongs to someone whose role at the company can be found
There is a way to ask questions that reaches the company through a channel you found yourself

Call the company through its own number

Find the company's website by searching for it, not by clicking a link in the letter, and use the number or careers address on that site to confirm the offer exists. A scammer controls every contact detail in the letter; they do not control the company's own website.

What the badges on an ofper company page mean

A company page on ofper exists only for companies that have verified their domain, so a job on an ofper page marked Verified for acme.com was posted by someone with control of acme.com. A Registered badge means the company's registration documents were reviewed and the legal name shown was checked. Registration numbers and addresses without that badge are shown but marked as self-declared, so that a false statement is visible rather than hidden. None of this replaces the money rule: a verified domain can still be misused by an insider, and a request for payment is a scam regardless of any badge.

Questions, answered straight

Is it normal to pay a security deposit for a job in India?

No. A deposit, fee or charge of any kind before joining is the defining feature of a job scam. Genuine employers, including those that provide laptops or training, do not charge candidates for them.

How do I check a company's CIN?

Search the CIN on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs portal under company or LLP master data. The registered name, status and registered office shown there should match what the company told you.

The offer came from a consultant, not the company. Is that a scam?

Not necessarily; agencies place candidates. But the agency is paid by the employer, never by you, and the offer letter itself should come from the employer on its own domain. Confirm the role with the employer directly.

What should I do if I already paid?

Report it to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal and to your bank immediately; the sooner the bank is told, the better the chance of a reversal. Keep the letter, the emails and the payment record.

Does a Verified badge on ofper mean the job is real?

It means the company proved control of the domain shown. That rules out impostors using the company's name; it does not verify the job's terms. Apply the same checks, and never pay.