Head of Marketing | Content Manager | Media, Tech, FMGC, AI, E-Commerce
A month ago I started a (fake) new job. I did a (fake) onboarding. I met (fake) colleagues. Scammers are posing as fake recruiters and tracking people that were laid-off recently in the tech industry. In my case, they used my AngelList profile to reach me. I received an email from a recruiter from Coinbase. The message was sent via BambooHR. I know this HR platform so it sounded legit. The approach was very straight to the point. The next day I did an online interview and got a job offer. It was a remote position as a contractor, something that I'm quite familiarized with. The salary was good, but I requested a couple of days to think. First I checked the (fake) recruiter background. He had 8k connections on LinkedIn, 9 recommendations and previously worked on Airbnb, Workday and Meta. I chatted with a friend from Binance. Her feedback was: "everything in the crypto world is quite shady and new. Is not that awkward receiving a job offer in 24h". I also found a guy from the Coinbase marketing team that shares tons of connections with me. He recommended the company and answered some of my doubts. So I signed the contract. One day later I got a welcome email and a link to Bitrix24. The whole onboarding was there and I virtually met a HR person. He explained that I was going to do a 10 days paid training. I even got some video tutorials! The first day was normal, the second day not so much. I had to install Paxful and analise this Coinbase competitor. At some moment I was requested to buy USD 200 in Bitcoins. After funding my wallet I should transfer this BTC to a Coinbase training account. I raised a red flag and requested a video chat with the (fake) recruiter. The person who was doing the onboarding noticed that I was not comfortable and cleverly explained that I should order my remote equipment in the meanwhile. He directed me to a (fake) landing page from Insight where I had to pick some items: a MacBook Pro, noise cancelling headphones, etc. Around 10 mins later I got an email from someone from Insight with an invoice: USD 3200. I paid attention to the email and I looked for grammar errors. I also noticed subtle changes in the company's email and website. That's when I was sure I was being scammed! I sent messages to all the companies involved about the scam, LinkedIn included. Their response, I'm not kidding, was almost a shrug emoji. Later I found some articles about this crime: cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible, did you know? These scammers know how to target vulnerable people and swindle them. I felt really stupid and naive when I discovered it, but I know this is not a silly scam. These guys are pro, they know the standard remote first jobs conditions and the tech industry's hiring culture. If you have read this far, thanks! I discovered some people that had similar experiences and they feel ashamed to share their stories! Help us to spread this! #linkedin #linkedintopvoice #layoffs
Oh wow. That’s one long con. I’m so sorry. Glad you figured it out before any harm done
Hey Gustavo Miller - thank you for being the brave voice to share your experience. Sad to say, I was a victim to a similar scam as well, but unlike you- I caught it too late. The impersonators were able to not only impersonate a reputable company, but actual employees who had worked at the company at that time (verified by Linkedin), and after taking a hold of my personal information, used that to tie a several figure debt into my name. I think people need to be aware that scammers today can make everything seem legit. In this case, everything in terms of paper trail seemed real - from the legal paperwork with the watermark of the company, to even releasing funds for the first few "paydays". This is when I learned the hard way that - they could easily call the bank, say they did not issue the payment (even after it reflected as "deposited") for the money to be "pending" but then suddenly not go through, even though it had previously reflected on the account. I pray no one ever has to go through this. Though the damage can be done in an instant, recovery from this experience (and I don't mean just financially) takes time. For everyone that has gone through it, I hope you know you're not alone and recovery is possible 🙏
When I announced I am Open to Work on LinkedIn, I received one notable scam offer from a company who offered to help me. Turns out it was a scam site designed to harvest contact details of people and recruiters. I contacted LinkedIn twice about them. First reply from LinkedIn arrived promptly saying the group in question had broken no LinkedIn rules. True. Instead this company was fishing on LinkedIn and conducted the cheating on their own site. Does this make LinkedIn an accomplice? Beware of Crooted. They have no employees, no address, and will comment on the Open to Work posts of newly unemployed offering services from their website. Except it's all a scam.
I got scammed a month or two ago...will post the details here now: It was via the legitimate "Job Seeking" site INDEED. It was a Work From Home..."Customer Service-type" role: Part-time and I would get training from this "Landscaping Company" (that DOES exist...because I "Googled" them and bookmarked their website for later referral to!) in Melbourne's Eastern Suburbs! The notification TO check out the position and apply for it came to my eMail Address directly FROM my account with "Indeed". So, I applied...gave the 'Landscaping Company' ALL my "personal details, via my 6-pages-long Resume (been working for 50 years!) including my address...phone numbers...date of birth...eMail address...etc...etc. Then sent it off... Within about 24 hours I was told BY INDEED...that I was one of 10 lucky people to be accepted BY the 'Landscaping Company' and that I would need to complete the "product training" that (obviously!) would be forthcoming!!! About a week went by and NOT A WORD from the 'Landscaping Company'...sooooooo I revisited their website...got the contact phone number and rang them, to find out what was happening...when would I be contacted and asked to attend their Company's product training! (continued in next post)...
I get a lot of "fake" requests for consulting. These days I check the whois for the domain that sent the email, and separately call the publicly available general phone number for the company supposedly soliciting me. Never the number on the email... When I discover scammers (usually) I forward the correspondence to the FBI tip-line. Which you should do also, maybe nothing comes of it, but perhaps it will help eventually.
Yeah I've had some scammers too. These guys did a phony interview asking some obscure Java related questions and then tried to get me to sign up for a course that would guarantee my job placement. It would cost $10,000 and they'd get 1% of my salary the first few years or something. I don't think they were as good as the ones that were onto you but I think there are a lot right now. I also had someone want to do an interview in their house and when I asked to do it online or somewhere public they said we'd just not do the interview. I'm not sure if that one was legit or not but he was claiming to be from a legit company too
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Head of Marketing | Content Manager | Media, Tech, FMGC, AI, E-Commerce
1yHey all! The repercussion of this post is endless, so I wrote a new one about the repercussion. Take a look! PS: +11 million impressions so far https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7016070674255351808/ Thanks for all the love and good energy!