Scam is rampant on LinkedIn. I'm getting constant connection requests from obviously fake profiles with AI generated faces.
Someone is pretending to be me
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Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#22These scams have been happening for decades. It's as hilarious as infuriating when somebody shows up to a job site and it's clearly not the person that was interviewed.
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#23A couple of weeks ago I received this email:
"Hi, Billy
How are you?
I checked your Codementor account, it is great.
I am *** **** from Ukraine.
I am 32 and I am also a computer programmer.
I want someone who can help me.
Would you lend me your account?
If you borrow it, I can earn a lot of money.
I will pay 100 usd every month.
Regards."
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#24I could sure use a flowchart to follow this story. Baffling level of fraud.
This is the type of arbitrage that happens when developers have similar technical skills but not similar interviewing skills.
If the other thread [1] is to be believed there is no guarantee that the developers on the other side has similar skills. No need to dig up arbitrage when it could simply be a scam.
Even the person they hired here to pretend to be Connor said himself that's he's just a junior that would pretend to be a senior. Maybe the idea is simply to get a well-paid job, work a couple months, get fired (maybe even with a generous severance), and repeat.
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#25Like all scams and spam, if it didnt work then people wouldnt do it. But I am struggling to see how it will work.
Sometimes just the possibility of it working, and the person's desperation, will cause them to try it. I've heard enough instances of people paying others to take exams for them that it doesn't surprise me that some people trying to do an interview that way, too. They think just getting the job will do something for them, and (for whatever reason) think they'll be able to keep the job once they have it.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that these people think they have high-level skills, but some other factor is preventing them from getting the job. Sometimes it might even be true, but I'm better against them having the skill level they think they do.
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#26I submitted my own blog here, but then my intentionally configured HN timeouts locked me out. I was wondering why my little Linode was dying.
Yeah this was an incredibly odd and creepy experience that I continue to investigate here and there. I really appreciate the interviewer for letting me stay on and confront the imposter.
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#27Is any actual work happening here? Does someone ever sign an offer letter and start checking in source code?
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#28As for motivation, maybe cash out one or two paychecks? Dunno how it works in the US, but where I live that would be hard without any ID or tax information. Maybe they'll request the first paycheck as a cashiers check? Paypal payment? Who knows. But 1-2-3 months worth of US-level salary would be a fortune in some parts of the world.
In the days of remote work, it would not surprise me a bit if there are organized criminals doing this 24/7. Just churning out job applications, hiring people off fiverr, upwork, etc. to do the interviews, collect a paycheck or two and disappear. Could easily be worth $5000-$20000 pr. scam, if they manage to get hired.
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#29Why didn't they make a up totally fake person with a fake history instead of using a real person? I feel like it's possible to do, even fake a github.
It't way more work to make a fake profile, with actual contributions to different (real) repositories, then just pretend to be an existing one.
Re: Someone is pretending to be me
#30I submitted my own blog here, but then my intentionally configured HN timeouts locked me out. I was wondering why my little Linode was dying. Yeah this was an incredibly odd and creepy experience that I continue to investigate here and there. I really appreciate the interviewer for letting me stay on and confront the imposter.
The Darknet Diaries guy will probably want to interview you after this.