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How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

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Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#21

Post by sjducb »

nostrademons wrote: post #19

Basically you're lending your name and identity as a front for someone with malicious intentions. There are a few different angles to this. Other people have already mentioned the North Korean state-sponsored espionage, but honestly I think this is a small minority of this market. The other two big ones are visa fraud and employment fraud. With the first one, you have a developer, possibly even skilled in a low-wage…

I think they will create fake candidate identities. So you’re just the person who passes the interview for them. You might find that you spend most of the time interviewing and fill many positions per year. Providing lots of work for Indian developers.

Obviously it’s fraud so don’t do it.

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#22

Post by butlike »

nostrademons wrote: post #19

Basically you're lending your name and identity as a front for someone with malicious intentions. There are a few different angles to this. Other people have already mentioned the North Korean state-sponsored espionage, but honestly I think this is a small minority of this market. The other two big ones are visa fraud and employment fraud. With the first one, you have a developer, possibly even skilled in a low-wage…

Technically you would be the one paying out since your name would be in on the W2 since you're the one who interviewed.

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#23

Post by darubedarob »

Its a nice little window into low trust societies and what you get when you outsource and decide there is no difference in cultures about honesty and work ethics. This "applicant" will $ublet himself out of that equation once the situation has stabilized.

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#24

Post by truemotive »

jack_tripper wrote: post #18
tdullien wrote: post #2

There's been an ongoing issue with North Korean state agents infiltrating SV companies, and this proposal helps them pass the interview process more easily. There's multipronged benefit for them: Access to company infrastructure to potentially cause harm or ransom in the future, access to technology / intelligence, but also simply foreign currency.

There's an event bigger number of Indian candidates trying to scam themselves into US jobs, than north Korean ones. Especially when the recruiting process of big companies becomes predictable and well documented online, candidates will just perfect the targeting and cheating of that specific system. What if the future just becomes in person interviews again, because every remote candidate will either be an Deepfaked…

Employers are already including 'proof-of-life' checks on the low hanging fruit freelance sites such as Upwork. One example is literally having to get on a virtual call and obstruct your face with your hand or something similar to prevent passing any automated checks.

Cat and mouse.

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#25

Post by davidbhead »

Founder of Endorsed here. We help employers block situations like these where job seekers are collaborating with the scammers.

As other have pointed out, there are multiple types of scammers here.

The most benign are people who just want US salaries. The most malicious is North Korea who will go as far as installing ransomware and infiltrating financial institutions (especially crypto) to steal user money.

We know North Korea is much of the problem since the FBI gets involved in the malicious cases that I described and they publish reports. It’s hard to tell though because companies want to keep news they are infiltrated as quiet as possible.

I’m not sure which type of fraudster sent you this email other than the rate they are saying they will pay (50%) is exceptionally high. We know the North Koreans pay 10% for using your identity for ID verification etc, and 20% if you are the front man.

Nostrademons wrote a great comment about how they can use your identity here in problematic ways. I’m not sure how much this has happened since I have yet to hear about it in private stories from employers, who tend to be pretty candid. From what I can tell the fraudsters want to stay under the radar and be employed as long as possible. A lot are great engineers so they pull it off.

That said, rarely do people want to talk about this topic who are involved so it’s hard to tell what fully happens in each scenario.

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#26

Post by sam_lowry_ »

butlike wrote: post #22
nostrademons wrote: post #19

Basically you're lending your name and identity as a front for someone with malicious intentions. There are a few different angles to this. Other people have already mentioned the North Korean state-sponsored espionage, but honestly I think this is a small minority of this market. The other two big ones are visa fraud and employment fraud. With the first one, you have a developer, possibly even skilled in a low-wage…

Technically you would be the one paying out since your name would be in on the W2 since you're the one who interviewed.

> There's no honor in thieves

The explanation was fine until this point (

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

davidbhead wrote: post #25

Founder of Endorsed here. We help employers block situations like these where job seekers are collaborating with the scammers. As other have pointed out, there are multiple types of scammers here. The most benign are people who just want US salaries. The most malicious is North Korea who will go as far as installing ransomware and infiltrating financial institutions (especially crypto) to steal user money. We know No…

[deleted]

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#29

Post by mcphage »

nostrademons wrote: post #19

Basically you're lending your name and identity as a front for someone with malicious intentions. There are a few different angles to this. Other people have already mentioned the North Korean state-sponsored espionage, but honestly I think this is a small minority of this market. The other two big ones are visa fraud and employment fraud. With the first one, you have a developer, possibly even skilled in a low-wage…

> It's remarkably hard to fire a U.S. employee without risks of lawsuits.

That’s… not really true.

Re: How does a "you interview for US company, we do the work" scam work?

#30

Post by idontwantthis »

mcphage wrote: post #29
nostrademons wrote: post #19

Basically you're lending your name and identity as a front for someone with malicious intentions. There are a few different angles to this. Other people have already mentioned the North Korean state-sponsored espionage, but honestly I think this is a small minority of this market. The other two big ones are visa fraud and employment fraud. With the first one, you have a developer, possibly even skilled in a low-wage…

> It's remarkably hard to fire a U.S. employee without risks of lawsuits. That’s… not really true.

Yeah not my experience at all. I am an at will employee and I can wake up tomorrow to a locked laptop.
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