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Someone is pretending to be me

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Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#111

Post by notahacker »

jawns wrote: post #99
darau1 wrote: post #81

Someone messaged me on reddit once, and straight up asked me to do exactly this. Below is the message, but I haven't included their name because I think they were at least trying to seem sincere. --- Hi, hope you're doing well. We are looking for a professional interviewee. I'm not sure if you've heard similar thing somewhere. We are a talented developer group specialized in web and mobile software development. We ha…

If it were really true that this development group could deliver according to client expectations, they would do what many other groups do: form a consultancy and hire an English-language speaker not as a fake interview candidate but as a liason. I worked with a firm that did this. Basically, they had one project manager who could speak decent English and about six developers who couldn't. The English-speaking PM was…

I think the main factor that drives the alternative model is that a lot of people with jobs that could theoretically be undertaken by offshore agencies advertise for an onshore individual (sometimes because they have very strong reasons not to want to offshore, but also sometimes because they haven't considered it). So there's a bigger market of better paying gigs out there for a "candidate" than an "offshore agency" (considerably better if they can actually deliver the work). Not that this particular entity seems to have had much ability...

In the grey area, there's still a big difference between a liason taking on a load of freelance contracts for the farm under his real name and intermediating comms without ever mentioning there's actually six other people he's never met doing most of the work and identity theft to take on remote full time roles involving work they probably can't handle.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#112

Post by treis »

ryandrake wrote: post #43
macintux wrote: post #3

I could sure use a flowchart to follow this story. Baffling level of fraud.

Whenever I read these kinds of super-complicated scams, I can't help but think if the scammer would have instead invested all that time and effort into legitimate tech and interviewing skills, he/she could have just come in the front door! It's like the person who spends hundreds of hours putting together the perfect exam cheating scheme, where they could have instead put in half of that time actually studying! Or, i…

In a lot of ways it's a convoluted form of arbitrage. These people "buy" developer labor in the cheap markets and "sell" in the expensive ones. Obviously bad when the developer labor doesn't get delivered as advertised. But if you can pull it off then mostly good for everyone.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#114

Post by brysonreece »

dont__panic wrote: post #107
mrandypratt37 wrote: post #86

I'm a US-based accountant who is currently interviewing for his first job in software and I was approached by someone on on LinkedIn about an opportunity. Seemed fishy, but figured I could risk 15 minutes. The person set up a meeting between me and a Taiwanese Developer for this exact thing. He said he had 7 years experience and had a contract drafted for he and I to become "business partner" where I would take the m…

If I can play devil's advocate for a moment... if the company gets decent work, the non-US participant gets better (and fairer, globally) pay compared to what they'd get locally, and the US participant takes care of the "soft" side of the operation... who's getting hurt? I can't deny that something smells skeevy about this and I don't think I could ever trust a random foreign developer who I haven't built up a solid…

From the perspective of the company, there's immediate concerns around sensitive information, intellectual property, corporate/government espionage -- none of which seem unlikely in positions premised on flexible morals.

IMO if there were registered/regulated, established services that filled this need and handled the VISA/background check process then I wonder if companies might be willing to work with overseas developers more.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#115

Post by thewebcount »

dont__panic wrote: post #107
mrandypratt37 wrote: post #86

I'm a US-based accountant who is currently interviewing for his first job in software and I was approached by someone on on LinkedIn about an opportunity. Seemed fishy, but figured I could risk 15 minutes. The person set up a meeting between me and a Taiwanese Developer for this exact thing. He said he had 7 years experience and had a contract drafted for he and I to become "business partner" where I would take the m…

If I can play devil's advocate for a moment... if the company gets decent work, the non-US participant gets better (and fairer, globally) pay compared to what they'd get locally, and the US participant takes care of the "soft" side of the operation... who's getting hurt? I can't deny that something smells skeevy about this and I don't think I could ever trust a random foreign developer who I haven't built up a solid…

> who's getting hurt?

The person being impersonated. Someone is out there pretending to be them. This person is known to be willing to do unethical things. (Who knows, maybe they're also infiltrating the client's network and stealing data, installing ransomware, etc.?) Furthermore, how does the person in the US pretending to be the developer get paid? Do they actually get paid, or is that a scam, too? At any point does someone write a check to fake developer in their name? Does the IRS see that? Is the real developer now on the hook for taxes on that? There are numerous things that could go wrong and hurt the developer being impersonated, the person doing the impersonation, and the client.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#116

Post by javajosh »

dctoedt wrote: post #17

I hope Andrew [0] — the college junior with morals who blew the whistle on the attempt to get him to impersonate the author — gets an internship or job offer out of this; he apparently was having a hard time with that. The author's sleuthing is reminiscent of Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg from 1989. [1] [0] Andrew blogs at https://unfooling.com/ , according to the article. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cucko…

Perhaps at the end of the day that's what the scam was about, getting Andrew an internship. I mean if I was writing the movie that would be the twist at the end

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#117

Post by clusterhacks »

ollien wrote: post #57

What I can't piece together here is what the scammer's endgame is. They land a cushy developer job under some false identity and ... then what? They're not going to pay some random college student to attend every meeting, are they? Even if they were, are they going to be able to maintain the level of work they lied about? If they really had those skills, they would just interview on their own. Something's not adding…

I had two past co-workers who were almost certainly having someone else do their work, I think (especially) at non-software companies folks just don't get caught.

Frankly, the work environment was slow-paced and generally non-confrontational so both co-workers I suspect of this behavior just managed to tread water. When I joined the group there was a very tight-knit group of 3-4 developers who were very protective of each other. There was always a handy reason why some schedule was slipping and the other fact is that in hindsight, there just weren't very high expectations for them to accomplish anything.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#119

Post by jjslocum3 »

In 1996, my employer got a contract to work with AT&T to build a website that provided regular event updates from the Atlanta Olympics. In 1996, this was a very big deal, such a newish concept that the project was written up in AdAge or some similar industry magazine.

A few months later a prospective junior engineer came in for an interview. My manager asked him the typical "tell me about an interesting project you've worked on lately." He then proceeded to describe in detail the very project we had just completed, even referencing the magazine article about it (he must have forgotten he was interviewing at the company mentioned in the article). At the end of his presentation, my manager said "That's interesting, because here at X, we just completed that project."

Awkward silence. Then the interviewee got up and said "I guess I should go now." My manager said "Yes, I guess you should."

Impersonation of this sort can be simultaneously disturbing and somehow comical. It isn't a new phenomenon; I'm not decided on whether I believe the information age makes it easier or more difficult.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#120

Post by lazide »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #54
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #37

This story is much more fun when you come at it from the interviewer's position. You've been doing interviews every week. They're mostly rejections. They're the same questions over and over with minor variation. You're about to repeat the experience for the 18th time and you're 100% on autopilot. But suddenly you're in a spy thriller. This is the greatest thing that's ever happened. Is it a good legal/corporate decis…

Oh, I'd be so in to take part in this drama. It would probably be one of the most memorable job interviews of all time. And I doubt there would be too many legal or corporate ramifications from allowing someone else to be on the call with their camera off. These are contractor positions, not full-time. Frankly, it's a risk I would take to be able to witness this sort of thing in real-time.

Eh, don't bet on it. What if #2 was real, and #1 was someone stalking #2? Or an abusive ex?

If #2 doesn't get the the potential job, they could come after you for all sorts of things - emotional damages, economic damage (from not getting the job), etc. They might even be able to get the court to force you to give them the job, or at least waste years of your time and mental health dealing with legal hassles.

It's hilarious and awesomely entertaining, but don't do it if you have assets someone could go after, as eventually, someone will.

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