Compiled from FTC alerts and what keeps getting reported in these communities:

1. unsolicited texts, WhatsApp or Telegram messages offering "online assessor" or "remote AI trainer" work with a daily rate and no details. often they just want you to reply YES
2. "task" apps where you rate or boost products, get small payouts at first, then have to deposit money (often crypto) to unlock earnings
3. fake recruiters using real brand names like Mercor, Outlier or DataAnnotation, with cloned dashboards or lookalike domains
4. people selling or renting "verified" platform accounts. breaks every platform's terms and can get you into real trouble
5. fake onboarding portals asking for your SSN, ID or bank details before any official contact
6. "equipment" you pay for upfront and get "reimbursed" by a check that bounces

Real platforms don't charge you anything to work. If you see a new one, post it with the Scam Alert flair and blur personal info.

Sources: https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2026/04/job-offer-text-probably-scam and https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-visualizations/data-spotlight/2024/12/paying-get-paid-gamified-job-scams-drive-record-losses

W-8BEN is the easy part. After that it seems to depend a lot on country: some people register as self-employed, some invoice, some just declare it as other income. Not looking for official advice, just what's worked for people. Mention your country so it's useful to others.

Platform marketing pages all say "up to" something, which doesn't tell anyone much. If you're comfortable, drop field, platform, rate and rough region. Once there's enough I'll make an anonymous table and pin it.

Assessments seem to be where most people get filtered out, so it'd help newer people to hear what they're like in general terms. Format, how long they took, whether they were harder than expected. Please nothing specific to a project or test content, that stuff gets removed.

The one tip that comes up constantly is reading the instructions twice before starting.

Going by what people post across the AI training subs, empty dashboards come up more than anything else, pay included. Work on most of these platforms is project based, so it comes in waves and sometimes stops for weeks with no explanation.

The approaches people mention most are being on more than one platform, retaking or picking up new assessments when they open, and treating this as side income rather than rent money. Curious if anyone's found something that actually shortens the dry spells.

Pulled this together from a lot of reading through onboarding threads. Not gospel, but it keeps coming up:

• list your field in plain words. "organic chemistry, 4 yrs lab work" beats "detail-oriented"
• if you've done any writing, editing, tutoring, grading or QA, put it near the top
• degrees and certs as plain text, since a lot of these get parsed automatically
• coding: name languages and actual things you built, not "proficient in Python"
• keep it short. nobody needs your 2014 retail job unless it's relevant

Anyone who's been through a bunch of these probably has stuff to add or argue with.

Seems like a lot of people apply to a bunch of platforms and then wait forever without hearing anything, so I'm curious what's normal. Which platform got you your first task, how long did it take, and what's your background? Generalist, coder, some niche expert thing? I'll throw the answers into a summary post if enough people reply.

Hey all, we just started this and want it to be actually useful, not another dead sub. More pay data? Platform comparisons? Job alerts? Help for beginners? Tell us in the comments, we read everything. (Disclosure: the sub is run by the folks behind aitasks.live.)