These were no such job positions for United Airlines. Further, any users who tried to find the positions outside of the false ads, such as with a Google search, could be led to dangerous scams.
In early February 2024, advertisements were displayed next to YouTube videos that claimed United Airlines was "urgently" hiring for remote customer service jobs that come with free flights and a starting pay of between $20 and $29 per hour. The ads claimed, "Hiring remote workers urgently. All employees get free flights, free lunches, bonuses and more!"
However, as we noted above in our fact-check rating, such ads were false. We found no evidence on the careers website for United that they were hiring for remote positions in customer service.
The YouTube ads led to various websites that had the appearance of perhaps being legitimate job boards where users might be able to apply for positions. However, no remote customer-service jobs for United appeared on the resulting websites that came from clicking on the ads.
Instead, the websites that resulted from the ads appeared to be designed to send users to other websites with unhelpful outcomes, to say the least. Some of the websites might ask users to opt in to receive text messages, phone calls and emails from what were dubbed as "marketing partners." Snopes discourages opting in for these sorts of communications.
Further, a Google search for remote customer service jobs with United Airlines displayed results with links that led to untrustworthy websites. Such websites might attempt a full-screen takeover of a user's device, all to try to scare the person into installing browser extensions or antivirus software. Phishing scams may have been involved with some of these websites, too.
Snopes previously reported in-depth about similar ads that falsely claimed Delta Air Lines was offering remote jobs and free flights. Those ads – which came from the same Google advertiser promoting the false United ads – led to the same sorts of potentially dangerous websites.