A "recruiter" asked me to pay for a training kit before joining. Almost sent it. Posting the red flags.

Got a WhatsApp message about a backend developer trainee role. The person had a company logo as their display picture, sent a proper-looking offer PDF within a day, and never once asked me to write code.

Then came the catch: a "refundable" deposit for a training kit and ID card, payable to a personal UPI ID. That's the part that finally broke the spell.

Things I wish I'd caught sooner:

• The entire conversation happened on WhatsApp. Not one mail from a company domain.
• The offer letter had the salary line in a font that didn't match the rest of the page.
• Constant deadline pressure. "Confirm by tonight, limited seats."
• Zero technical evaluation. Nobody hands out a dev job to someone they've never seen think through a problem.

No legitimate employer will ever ask you for money. Not for training, not for a laptop, not as a refundable anything. And the reason this works is that it finds you exactly when you're eight months into a bad search and desperate for one piece of good news.

Check the recruiter against the company's actual careers page before you reply to anything.