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A fake job offer gone wrong

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Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#331

Post by csours »

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…

For me, it's not the check, it's the emails. I would expect to have emails and calls from at least 3 people at the company - HR, Hiring Manager, and Team Manager. Also, companies are terrified of being sued, that's why they require all recruiting and hiring emails to be done on the corporate accounts. If they don't require HR and managers to use corporate email, that's a big red flag too

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#332

Post by matheusmoreira »

shkkmo wrote: post #214
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jfc, that manager should be criminally culpable.

If by "criminally culpable" you mean "awarded over a million dollars", then that is exactly what happened. > Summers also sued McDonald's and was awarded $1 million in punitive damages and $100,000 in compensatory damages.

Meanwhile, her fiancée was arrested and imprisoned for years for doing pretty much the same thing she did. The suspect also walked free.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#333

Post by sizzle »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #332
shkkmo wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "criminally culpable" you mean "awarded over a million dollars", then that is exactly what happened. > Summers also sued McDonald's and was awarded $1 million in punitive damages and $100,000 in compensatory damages.

Meanwhile, her fiancée was arrested and imprisoned for years for doing pretty much the same thing she did. The suspect also walked free.

Wtf really, that’s nuts. Got a source I can read more about this?

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#334

Post by matheusmoreira »

sizzle wrote: post #333
matheusmoreira wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, her fiancée was arrested and imprisoned for years for doing pretty much the same thing she did. The suspect also walked free.

Wtf really, that’s nuts. Got a source I can read more about this?

The news article itself.

https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3688563

> Nix was sentenced in March, 2006 to five years in prison.

> He pleaded guilty to sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, and unlawful imprisonment.

> Donna Summers was fired after the incident.

> She was charged with unlawful imprisonment, and was sentenced to probation after entering an Alford plea — a type of guilty plea in which a person does not admit guilt, but acknowledges the evidence is sufficient for a conviction.

> She broke off her engagement to Nix after viewing the surveillance tapes.

> Summers also sued McDonald's and was awarded $1 million in punitive damages and $100,000 in compensatory damages.

> After two hours of deliberations, Stewart was found not guilty on all charges.

Justice is a funny thing, isn't it?

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#335

Post by kwhitefoot »

sgerenser wrote: post #197
kwhitefoot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bonkers! It costs at least an order of magnitude more to process a cheque than a credit card transaction. And debit cards are even cheaper.

Not in the U.S. The interchange fee alone is at least 1% for a credit card, typical all-in fee to the merchant is 2-4%. Checks cost almost nothing in comparison.

That's what the processors charge, not what it costs them.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#336

Post by vertis »

roperj wrote: post #326
Viliam1234 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies sometimes do things that don't make much sense. If you are not familiar with what is and what isn't "normal", it can be hard to tell the difference. For example, when I company I worked for sent me on a business trip, I was supposed to buy the flight ticket using my own money, then bring them then receipt, and then they would pay me the money back. Why couldn't they buy the flight ticket themselves instead?…

At what point were they having you send the money they just sent you back to them, but in a different form? Did your company have you wire to some random bank account? I assume not. These are not the same scenarios at all. For one thing even if the company never reimbursed you - it wasn’t an outright scam, you did get a flight. The scam scenario you are literally just sending money to a scammer - with the extra flour…

The point is not that it's the same though, it's that companies can behave in seemingly weird ways, to an outsider some of these behaviours might even appear scammish or risky (and it probably is risky to by the flight ticket on the guarantee that your employer will pay you back, what if they decide it wasn't an approved trip belatedly).

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#337

Post by roperj »

vertis wrote: post #336
roperj wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point were they having you send the money they just sent you back to them, but in a different form? Did your company have you wire to some random bank account? I assume not. These are not the same scenarios at all. For one thing even if the company never reimbursed you - it wasn’t an outright scam, you did get a flight. The scam scenario you are literally just sending money to a scammer - with the extra flour…

The point is not that it's the same though, it's that companies can behave in seemingly weird ways, to an outsider some of these behaviours might even appear scammish or risky (and it probably is risky to by the flight ticket on the guarantee that your employer will pay you back, what if they decide it wasn't an approved trip belatedly).

> it's that companies can behave in seemingly weird ways, to an outsider some of these behaviours might even appear scammish or risky

This is no more inherently scammish than my relationship with my credit card company or any time one agrees to pay later (which is the norm of how businesses with supply chains operate).

The point is there’s no need to use some ill defined concept of weird. Where is the money going and what is the purpose? If someone is giving you an unbacked check and requesting a wire transfer to themselves it’s a scam.

While agreeing to be paid later for an unrelated good or service has some amount of risk it isn’t a scam.

And there are clear benefits to booking your own plane tickets.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#338

Post by coredog64 »

vba616 wrote: post #322
iso1631 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would certainly expect it to be faster than procurement, but not living in the US the concept of receiving a Cheque in the 21st century would raise all forms of red flags. If they deposited the cash directly into my account via a BACS payment, same as my salary, that would be far more believable. That said, $10k in office expenses for someone starting on $40k a year ($20/hr training) would also raise a flag. Edit:…

>Do people really get paid by checks in the US? If they don't have a bank account or refuse direct deposit or direct deposit isn't set up yet. Or if the employer is treating them as an independent contractor, maybe.

I had a scummy employer that was always “overpaying” me. So I switched to paper checks that I cashed at his bank and wired to mine. If there was a real overpayment, sure, he’d get his money back…eventually.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#339

Post by KabukiOrigin »

I think you're in the U.S., and if so immediately freeze your credit so that they can't take out new credit in your name. They seem pretty motivated and they have a lot of your identity information. You can learn how to freeze and unfreeze your credit for free at https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-freeze-cre....

Then pull all three of your credit reports to check for anomalies. You can do that for free at https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Right now you can do it for free every week. In non-pandemic times it's once a year. Do NOT agree to any upsells for additional features or protection to get your free report; it's not required to just get your reports.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#340

Post by underwater »

grepfru_it wrote: post #264
jacurtis wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least your daughter went through a full interview, which does add a layer of legitimacy. The most shocking element of OP's story is that he never actually got interviewed by a real person. He filled out a questionaire, received no feedback from it other than "You're hired at 12.5% more than you're asking". This to me is the biggest red flag of all leading up to the actual "ask" to cash the check and send funds. It…

why why why would you send money to someone who would ask you to send it back. why can't they just convert that money state themselves? i always wonder how people end up for these scams. unless its your very close friend or family, don't launder money. i think this is a life lesson we learn in middle school and grow up to think adults are more trustworthy

Because of course it's a scam when you step back and see how all the pieces fit together. But when the victim is in the middle, they're being confused in a lot of ways:

* The scammer keeps the focus on the upsides (job, office supplies) which are good but not unrealistic.

* The scammer is keeping the victim overwhelmed with interviews, paperwork, training, etc. The actual scam part is a small percentage of the victim's focus. This is classic misdirection.

* The scammer gets the victim to commit a lot of time and energy. Loss aversion and social norms stops people calling out slightly suspicious activity immediately.

* The big one is that the scammer drip feeds pieces so that the victim doesn't see the big picture. It's not like the scammer lays out the scheme on day one. They start with the company providing supplies (not suspicious), bureaucratic fumbling meaning the process changes (understandable), the new hire submitting the order themselves (ok), etc. Each step is logical and only slightly peculiar in isolation. Once the victim is comfortable with each step they are fed the next lie.

The last one works because even if people are suspicious of new information, once they've decided something is true they rarely reconsider their position. In this case the scammer got the victim to believe that the job was real, and the scammer was a legitimate HR person before introducing the scam element. If you believe the company is real, why would you imagine the check is fake? If you truly believe the check is real, how does the transfer risk your own money? They build a foundation of trust by layering a lot of little lies.

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