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Someone is pretending to be me

connortumbleson.com

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Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#201

Post by filmgirlcw »

sinoue wrote: post #165
filmgirlcw wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you're hiring a contractor off of Upwork, not from a reputable consultancy (to be clear, I'm sure established consultancies do shady shit too, but the risk profile is different), so I think the risk is pretty small. We're talking edge cases on a scenario that is already an edge case.

Even UpWork requires government ID verification. https://support.upwork.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010609234-ID... I wonder what financial fraud they'll need to do to get the funds as I'm assuming UpWork has to deal with tax payments being pulled out.

Yeah, I have to imagine they might be using a group account on Upwork and then misrepresenting the coder as a part of their team, but I don’t know enough about how Upwork works.

I posted about this blog post on Twitter and was directed a Reddit post [1] showing how little Upwork seems to care about fake reviews and stolen work product, so it appears Upwork has a history of ignoring fraud, regardless of what their terms say.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/xavntw/freelan...

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#202

Post by fortran77 »

blastwind wrote: post #125

Andrew here. Connor, thanks for releasing this on the orange site. This story is also more fun from my position. I've been applying to internships and interviewing every week. They're mostly rejections. They're the same questions over and over with minor variation (sorry to top comment for "impersonating" your comment style). My days are deteriorating from a colorful sphere down to two points. In fact, down to two po…

I wonder how many people in your position smell something rotten, but instead of trying to contact the "real Connor" just delete/ignore all the messages because they don't want to be part of even a bigger scam. (What if everyone is in on it, and they're trying to scam you somehow?).

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#203

Post by robswc »

blastwind wrote: post #125

Andrew here. Connor, thanks for releasing this on the orange site. This story is also more fun from my position. I've been applying to internships and interviewing every week. They're mostly rejections. They're the same questions over and over with minor variation (sorry to top comment for "impersonating" your comment style). My days are deteriorating from a colorful sphere down to two points. In fact, down to two po…

I know it probably feels a bit hopeless now but trust me.

If you learn to build things, provide value, you will have 100s of recruiters reaching out to you and you will mostly be rejecting offers for a change :)

I have no doubt reading about you and seeing this comment in a few years you will be more than set!

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#205

Post by jaffee »

blastwind wrote: post #125

Andrew here. Connor, thanks for releasing this on the orange site. This story is also more fun from my position. I've been applying to internships and interviewing every week. They're mostly rejections. They're the same questions over and over with minor variation (sorry to top comment for "impersonating" your comment style). My days are deteriorating from a colorful sphere down to two points. In fact, down to two po…

Andrew, see if anything here catches your eye... we've got a few openings. You can email me at my username at featurebase.com.

https://www.featurebase.com/careers

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#206

Post by RunSet »

Someone created a github account with my name and has been squatting it for years.

Github support tells me they won't deactivate or rename the account (I don't want it, I just want it gone) unless I copyright my own name and file a copyright complaint with them.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#207

Post by jstarfish »

radarsat1 wrote: post #181

This is amazing. I wanted to add one thing. I noticed after reading the full blog post, and scanning through all the HN comments here, that there has been actually no mention, as far as I can tell, from any parties involved, or even any commenters, of any intention to make a police report. Now, I understand not trusting the police, and often it's more trouble than it's worth to deal with them. But this is a situation…

You vastly overestimate the degree to which the police give a shit. Unless there's an actual financial loss or threat to life, they don't care. This barely qualifies as identity theft anyway; it's attempted fraud.

They won't take a report of your phone number being spoofed, but they'll deploy SWAT teams to unsuspecting houses at the word of bored teenagers.

Do you know the imposter's actual identity? What would you even report? If the perpetrator is international, what are your local police even supposed to do with this information?

You might have a little better luck with the FBI, but if you don't show up with hard evidence (i.e. do all the work for them), you won't get anywhere with them either.

All of this goes to show you why this sort of scheme remains successful. Nobody cares. Fraud is just an assumed risk.

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#208

Post by mechanical_bear »

pjbeam wrote: post #178
blastwind wrote: post #125

Andrew here. Connor, thanks for releasing this on the orange site. This story is also more fun from my position. I've been applying to internships and interviewing every week. They're mostly rejections. They're the same questions over and over with minor variation (sorry to top comment for "impersonating" your comment style). My days are deteriorating from a colorful sphere down to two points. In fact, down to two po…

Email me at my HN username at protonmail dot com for a referral to Dropbox's internship. Love the integrity and drive to get to the bottom of a strange situation.

There ya go, looks like a gained opportunity there!

Re: Someone is pretending to be me

#210

Post by mk89 »

People, I really tried to read comments to understand if someone had my same question: what for?

Eventually you need to pay this person, he/she will need to give you some ID or passport, etc. How can someone just employ a name? Or is it just because they are contractors (so no document / background check)?

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