In today’s global hiring economy, fake location scams are quietly draining founder budgets and eroding trust in the remote work hierarchy. 

The pitch sounds harmless:

“We’re based in New York.”
“Our team operates out of London.”
“We have a registered office in Dubai.”

But behind the polished accents, virtual offices, and time-zone gymnastics, many freelancers and agencies are doing something far more calculated: lying about where they’re actually based to gain the founder’s trust and avoid accountability.              

In today’s remote-first era, the promise is simple:
Hire talent anywhere. Build faster everywhere.  

Scammers have their own version of that promise:
Appear local. Take the payment. Disappear globally.

Welcome to the Fake Location Tactic. It is a form of misrepresentation where teams claim credibility through geography while hiding behind jurisdictions that make recovery nearly impossible. 

At Founders Don’t Forget (FDF), early founder-submitted cases consistently show that fake location tactics rarely exist in isolation. 

Location deception is often the first and most ignored red flag in a remote hiring process. 

They often appear alongside delayed delivery, shifting scopes, pressure tactics, and legal intimidation; patterns documented across multiple FDF investigations. Location deception is just one surface symptom of a much wider problem founders face today. 

You can explore these warning signs and protection strategies in our investigation, Startup Fraud Is More Common Than Founders Think: Real Signs, Patterns & Protection | FDF.”

This guide breaks down:

• Why fake location scams work so well
• The most common ways freelancers and agencies fake their location
• Real patterns emerging from FDF’s early case reviews
• A founder-friendly blueprint to verify location before hiring
• Legal and contractual protections that reduce damage

Bookmark this before your next remote hire.

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Why Fake Location Scams Fool Even Smart Founders? 

Most founders don’t ignore or overlook red flags because they’re careless. They ignore them because the location feels like a minor detail, something that’s not important. 

Here’s why fake location tactics work so effectively for scammers and end up costing the founders. 

1. Credibility Bias

Founders subconsciously associate certain regions with quality, reliability, and legal safety. A U.S. or Western European address often lowers scrutiny instantly, and founders end up falling for these scams. 

Even when freelancers or agencies from developing countries may have strong credibility, founders often degrade their reliability just because they belong to a particular region. 

2. Platform Trust Illusions

“Top Rated,” “Verified,” or “Pro” badges signal performance, not physical reality. Platforms rarely verify where work is actually performed. This often misleads the founders and leads them to fall prey to these scammers’ lies. 

3. Timezone Manipulation

People operating these scams temporarily adjust their schedules to match your working hours, reinforcing the illusion of local presence. But all of this is a facade only until you clear their payments. Once they receive the money, it all goes puff in the air. 

4. Paper Legitimacy

Another way these scammers can fool you is by faking the legitimacy of their documents.

A virtual office, mailbox address, or LLC registration can be set up in hours. Even when the documents look real, the team never sets foot there, and they can easily fool you with this fake information. 

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Bottom line:
While location has become a proxy for trust, these fake location scams exploit the shortcut and pave an easy path for founders to pay for that proxy. 

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The Most Common Fake Location Fronts Used by Scammers

Here are the 5 most common fake location tactics that freelancers or agencies use to mess with the founders.     

1. Virtual Office Addresses

Since we’re in the remote working era, virtual offices have become the norm. While there is nothing wrong with that, they are being used quite frequently to conduct fake location scams. 

A low-cost mailbox in a premium district is not just easy to set up, but it also creates instant credibility. Lobby listings and Google Maps pins do the rest of the job and work as the perfect stamp of genuineness for the founders.   

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2. Borrowed or Farmed LinkedIn Profiles

LinkedIn is not just a social media profile. It is a mark of your professional digital presence, and it comes with bearing a sincere badge of reputation for the profile holder.   

But scammers clone or buy aged profiles from inactive professionals. It is quite easy for anybody to mask behind a decade-old “UK-based” profile to fake who is actually doing the work. 

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3. White-Label Development Fronts

Though there is nothing wrong with outsourcing projects to a team, it is unethical to do that without mentioning it to the founder. 

Many founders have reported instances where a local “consulting firm” has sold them projects while subcontracting all execution to an unmanaged offshore team, without disclosing it to them. 

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4. Timezone Overlap Tricks

Consistent communication at the beginning of the project can easily trick founders, as the freelancer or agency member seems fully committed.  

Early responsiveness builds trust in the eyes of the founder. It is only after onboarding you as a client and receiving those milestone payments that their availability collapses and the true colors begin to shine.  

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5. Shell Companies

Scammers can showcase their credibility in many ways when it comes to faking locations, shell companies is one of them. 

A registered entity, VoIP number, and branded email domain can easily create the illusion of substance without any assets, accountability, or recourse.

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What Early FDF Cases Reveal About Fake Location Fraud?

FDF is still in its early stages. So far, we have reviewed a small number of founder-submitted cases, with 7–10 new reports tracked monthly. 

But, even at this scale, patterns are emerging quickly. 

Here are 5 patterns that has stood out most in our recent analysis: 

• Losses are usually small at first, often between $1,000 and $5,000
• Founders often delay action, hoping delivery will improve
• Refunds are rare without strong contracts
• Legal threats are more common than resolutions 
• Ghosting is the most frequent outcome

While these are the most common patterns, here’s one critical insight:
Scammers don’t target industries. They target opportunities.

Irrespective of the industry, these scammers are baiting founders who want quick results at faster pay. Whether it’s SaaS, e-commerce, Web3, marketing, or development shops; fake location scams appear wherever founders hire remotely under pressure. 

Another overlooked red flag that has appeared repeatedly is the unnecessary delay in delivery with vague expectations. 

In some cases, yes these delays can be genuine. However, these delays aren’t always about skill. In many cases, they coincided with teams juggling hidden clients across the time zones they claimed not to be in.

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The Founder Blueprint: How to Verify Location Before Hiring? 

The truth is, location verification should be an important part of your hiring process. It cannot be an “either-or” parameter. It needs to be on your hiring checklist before you seal the deal with a freelancer or agency. 

But, that doesn’t mean you need invasive audits. All you need is signal consistency. Here’s how you do that: 

Step 1: Ask for a Real-Time Office Walkthrough

Instead of going with recordings, ask for a real-time office walkthrough. This doesn’t have to be long or highly interrogative, but a short, unedited video call. Remember, background blur, refusal, or excuses are sincere warning signs.

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Step 2: Watch IP & Metadata Patterns

Be smart enough to track IP and metadata patterns of the person you’re hiring. 

Design files, commits, and document histories often reveal timezone and location inconsistencies. 

Though these scammers may be using VPNs to divert their real locations, patterns can still leak, revealing their true geographical information. 

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Step 3: Inspect Invoices Carefully

In the end, it’s all about money. Scammers are often so hurried to receive the payments that they can end up fumbling the invoicing details sometimes. 

So, make sure you compare the invoice address with SWIFT/BIC or bank country codes. If there are any mismatches, you know you need to pause immediately.

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Step 4: Cross-Check LinkedIn Networks

As we mentioned before, Linked profiles are a badge of reputation in the professional realm. But, to save yourself from getting scammed, you must cross-check the person’s LinkedIn network. 

Profiles claiming the same city but lacking local connections often indicate location fraud.

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Step 5: Reverse Image Search Office Photos

In today’s digital era, it is not so difficult to put together a few stock photos and call them “the office” images. 

Scammers are constantly reusing stock coworking photos to put out a professional show for the founders. However, a quick check using stock photo websites like Pexels, Pixabay, Deposit Photos, etc. can expose them and save your finances. 

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Step 6: Contract for Truth

When hiring remotely, a written legal arrangement is your best bet to avoid any fraudulent practices. 

So, make sure your contract includes clauses that define location misrepresentation as a material breach, triggering refunds and IP protection.

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Step 7: Ask for Local References

The last and final step to verify the location before your next hiring is to ask for local recommendations from your freelancer or agency. 

If they are genuine, if their portfolio is as trustworthy as they claim, getting local references wouldn’t be a hard task. 

But if they only come up with two verifiable clients from the claimed region, if they’re too hesitant to get those references, you know something isn’t right. 

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Legal and Contractual Armor Against Fake Location Scams

As you hire your next remote worker, here are 5 non-negotiables you must include in your legal documents to protect yourself from fake location scams, specifically:  

• Governing Law & Jurisdiction: Choose your home jurisdiction
• Misrepresentation Clauses: Tie location honesty to payment and IP
• Verification Rights: Reserve the right to request proof during engagement
• Milestone Escrow: Reduce upfront exposure 
• Digital Audit Trails: Keep repositories and assets under your control

Remember not to skip the contractual work and the documentation process. 

Founders who skip contracts rarely recover funds. 

Founders who document early reduce damage.

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How Founders Don’t Forget Helps Without Naming or Shaming? 

FDF keeps a strict policy not publicly expose individuals or agencies. We understand the confidentiality with which founders submit their cases, and we aim to protect their trust and privacy.  

Instead, it focuses on:

• Awareness: Publishing real scam patterns that founders may miss
• Legal Direction: Connecting founders with lawyers to understand their options to protect themselves against such frauds 
• Community Intelligence: Helping founders realize that they’re not alone, and with the right guidance and resources, they can save themselves 

FDF is not here to scrutinize anybody; we only aim to help founders spot fake location tactics earlier, before their silence turns into another story of sincere financial loss. 

FDF is here to turn individual stories into shared signals, to help founders identify the red flags even as they conduct their hiring processes without falling prey to another scam.   

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Final Takeaway: Trust Is Global. Verification Is Mandatory.

Awareness about these scams should not take you away from the genuineness of remote hiring. 

It still works. In fact, remote hiring has simplified corporate hierarchy in many ways in the last few years. 

There are genuine offshore teams delivering incredible results every day. But that doesn’t take away from the flourishing existence of these scams. 

And fake location scams thrive on trust without verification. 

As a founder, your defense isn’t paranoia. Its preparation:

• Verify early
• Contract clearly
• Watch for delays
• Learn from founder communities

So the next time a team claims a premium address, don’t argue. Just ask for proof.

Because Founders Don’t Forget. And neither should you.

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