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A fake job offer gone wrong

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Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#281

Post by leetcrew »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #167
biztos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself pretty quick to detect scams, having worked in cybersecurity, though probably no quicker than the average HN commenter. And yet 15 years ago I fell for the “sell products that are no longer available” scam. There was a keyboard I really wanted but it was no longer being made. However, I found an online shop that had them in stock! I ordered, paid, got my confirmation, and waited about two weeks befo…

if you're in the US you can reverse the charge, whether debit or credit card, although with a debit card you'll have to be re-issued a new one. If enough people do chargebacks the payment processor will drop them because the ACH operator representing them will 100% fine the shit out of them if they don't. It's all contractual. My point is, if you want to put a dent in stuff like this, do a chargeback. Like a union, t…

> What's worse is most people don't even consider the risk to calling in an order from a local restaurant for delivery (chinese, for example).

if you review your monthly statement, the "risk" is the possible inconvenience of having your card replaced. I don't let it stop me from ordering my favorite takeout, but you do you.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#282

Post by trinsic2 »

silisili wrote: post #106
robgibbons wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the sunken cost fallacy

That's what came to my mind, but it's subtly different. Sunk cost is usually seemingly rational thinking about capital invested. Whereas this is rather irrational refusal to see a problem due to potential embarrassment, usually along with some type of investment.

Cognitive bias?

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#283

Post by trinsic2 »

newaccount74 wrote: post #221
tasty_freeze wrote: post #55

Sadly, my daughter got scammed earlier this year. She is a recent college grad from a liberal arts school, and had been working six months doing retail work after graduation. Looking to make use of her degree, she was excited to get a job offer doing remote work as an office coordinator. She has a dog so working from home was a plus, and $25/hr instead of $16/hr doing retail was a big raise. She not only lost $3000 f…

> The thing that pained her the most was the shame of having been scammed. I've fallen victim to a scammer as well (paid rent to a "landlord" who it turns out didn't actually own the place). It sucks, but I don't think it's something to be ashamed of. Our society is built on trust, and some people exploit that.

I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you.

I almost got scammed by this as well. But it felt strange to me that there was no actual person I needed to meet to complete the rental agreement. And then when they asked me to wire the money I knew it was a scam.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#284

Post by ghaff »

maccard wrote: post #151
csours wrote: post #24

As someone who has worked a corporate job for a while, this is all red flags _BUT_ if you have not worked for a corporation, and you really need a job, you may be motivated to dismiss those little warning signs so you can get paid. Scams don't work because scammers are smart; scams work because scammers exploit our motivations. Beware of charity scams this holiday season.

I've worked at corporate jobs and smaller companies, and frankly if a large company said "here's a list of our authorised resellers, and a signing bonus paid by cheque, please use it to buy equipment as it's faster than going through procurement" I would 100% believe them as at every job I've ever had (before I got a company card) it was faster and easier to just buy and expense. I genuinely wouldn't bat an eyelid un…

If the authorized resellers were companies I'd never heard of, I would hope that would raise flags. But, yeah, especially at a smaller company, getting an official-looking company check and told to use it to get myself set up and expense it when I started would seem pretty normal.

Though it's been many years since I've traveled to interview, I was always paid by check for anything out of pocket. (Except for a 3 letter government agency who paid me in cash.)

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#285

Post by chrisbaker98 »

skilled wrote: post #225

I haven't gone through all the comments, but am I the only one in here who doesn't want to read past 2nd email? If someone sent me some shady email address, then that shady email address sent me a message saying, "Hey it's me that shady email address owner, but I can't get to it, so I am using ANOTHER shady address." Someone convince me this post of his is not a waste of time.

Yeah, I read the post thinking "how on earth is this guy still falling for it? Everything about this screams scam, scam, scam, scam. Is he stupid or something?"

If I'd come this close to falling for such an obvious scam I'd be embarrassed to tell anyone it happened at all, much less publish a full transcript.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#287

Post by ghaff »

silisili wrote: post #106
robgibbons wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the sunken cost fallacy

That's what came to my mind, but it's subtly different. Sunk cost is usually seemingly rational thinking about capital invested. Whereas this is rather irrational refusal to see a problem due to potential embarrassment, usually along with some type of investment.

It's more along the lines of you develop tunnel vision. You just look at the next step ahead and you never backup and ask yourself whether the whole thing makes sense. You see it with all kinds of things including solving technical and other problems.

Once you've decided something is true, it's easy to dismiss all sorts of signals that maybe it isn't.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#288

Post by chrisbaker98 »

jjav wrote: post #71
sharkjacobs wrote: post #4

Are cheques even used for anything except for fraud anymore? Open call: Anyone out there paying or receiving payment with cheque in the last ten years?

> Are cheques even used for anything except for fraud anymore? Based on the cheques spelling I guess you're not in the US. Checks are very common here, I write them every month. In theory I could pay my water bill by credit card but their payment portal is so randomly broken that I save a ton of headache by writing a check and dropping it off at their payment box. My office lease only takes checks. Various other rent…

Is "direct debit" not a thing in the US?

All of my regular bills in the UK (mortgage, energy, water, internet, insurance, debt, probably some others I'm forgetting) are deducted automatically from my bank account every month. I don't have to think about it all - and there's zero possibility of nuking my credit score by accidentally missing a payment.

Having to remember to write a check for each bill every month sounds like an enormous (and enormously unnecessary) inconvenience. Is there really not a better option in the world's richest country in 2022?

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#289

Post by SanjayMehta »

webmobdev wrote: post #100
SanjayMehta wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This journalist got scammed into quitting her job and telling the world that she had been hired by an Ivy League university as a professor. Months of effort and multiple email domains created to push the scam. https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vq8m/india-nidhi-razdan-ph...

I believe she was targeted by the ruling political party, who have a history of harassing and doxxing their critics, (or the current indian government itself) to demoralise her and besmirch her reputation as a journalist. And that happened. She is now attacked by her critics for her "naivety", and ridiculed by them, and she went into depression and took a break. (It all points to that as she was never asked for any m…

I seriously doubt that they would waste their time on this. They have much more powerful tools at their disposal.

1. Aatish Taseer: His OCI card (something like dual citizenship, but not quite) was cancelled. He claims he's been told not to even attempt to visit India ever again.

2. Rana Ayyub: she created a donation website and got clobbered with tax evasion.

3. Numerous NGOs: including Green Peace and Amnesty have had their licenses revoked.

There are many more such cases, but off the top of my head, these jumped out.

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