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A fake job offer gone wrong

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Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#341

Post by cookie_monsta »

loa_in_ wrote: post #324
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, awarded a million dollars for being fucking stupid.

And apparently completely devoid of any idea of human decency, yes

This seems a bit harsh. Nobody really says that about the participants in the Milgram experiment[1], but the psychologist in the ABC article says that this is probably why the caller targeted fast food restaurants

>"Everything is by the book," he explained. "This is how you serve it. This is exactly how you do it. You follow the book — you're OK. I believe he picked fast food restaurants because he knew, once you got them away from that book, once it was something outside the manual or the procedures, they would be lost."

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#342

Post by jjav »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #194
jjav wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm not sure if it's an age thing but I live in the US and am mid-30s. I rarely, if ever, write checks. The only time I interact with checks is as a gift and I'm cashing it. Writing checks is a smell - if I can't use Zelle/Venmo/etc, it's an issue.

> if I can't use Zelle/Venmo/etc, it's an issue.

But by doing that you're imposing the risk to the seller that they may lose their money when paypal/zelle/venmo/etc freeze their account and steal their money (see frequent recurring threads right here on HN of this happening over and over).

I realize as a payer it's not your problem but something to think about.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#343

Post by jjav »

lultimouomo wrote: post #119
jjav wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> When receiving one, in most places it can be deposited by just taking a photo, doesn't get easier than that. Most importantly, I don't get to be another victim of the "$PAYMENT_PROCESSOR froze my account and stole my money", whether it be paypal or any of the other ones. If only there was a way for people to transfer money from their bank to someone else's bank... They could call it "bank transfer", and it would so…

> They could call it "bank transfer", and it would solve all these problems!

Yes, it is ACH, which is what a check is. One doesn't need to physically have the piece of paper to make it happen (which is why you can deposit a check with just a photo). Either way it's just ACH.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#344

Post by jjav »

chrisbaker98 wrote: post #288
jjav wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sound…

> 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.

Sometimes, vendors may support doing a recurring ACH transfer out of your account for the total of the month. In terms of mechanism, this is exactly the same as a check which is also just an ACH transfer out of your account. Not all vendors support this.

There is increased risk, however. By giving them blanket authorization to deduct whatever they want out of your bank account you now have the risk that they might get it wrong and deduct too much.

If you have enough money in the account to absorb the difference it'll eventually get sorted out. But what if you don't? Your balance may go to zero and all those other recurring payments get rejected and you'll get hit with tons of late payment fees and you'll be stuck with those. So you might nuke your credit score with all those late payments that weren't even your fault.

My absolute preferred approach is to do auto-pay to a credit card. That way I'm insulated from risk (at least in the US, credit card laws strongly favor the consumer; perhaps the only laws in the US that favor the consumer so well). Any mistakes in the system are not my problem and can't impact my balance.

But for vendors who can't bill to a credit card or charge too many fees to do so, the safest approach is still a check.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#345

Post by fxtentacle »

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.

It can also go the other way. I was once asked to wire money to a person I had never met in a country I had never been to. They said I needed to pre-pay my holiday rental. It totally felt like a scam, but it turned out to be legit and the apartment was lovely.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#346

Post by puffoflogic »

silisili wrote: post #58
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…

Sorry that happened to her. There's also some mental concept where people already got started or went so far, and subconsciously don't want to believe they've been had, so keep going. I'm sure there's a name for it, I can't be bothered to look up. It's why romance scams are so common, and also why that McDonald's manager undressed that employee, for example. Fascinating, but sad.

It could also explain the actios of some people who are "caught" going to the hotel room of 40 year old cops pretending to be 14 year olds online, but who only "reveal" their age at the last second.

But no one likes to think about this version of confirmation bias/the bias you were talking about, somehow.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#347

Post by puffoflogic »

the_gipsy wrote: post #147
ryandrake wrote: post #48

Great job figuring out it was a scam but honestly, it’s crazy that these things still work on anyone all the way in 2022. You would think that by now every human being that walks the earth would know that whenever someone you don’t know sends you “money” and then requests you send it back (or to another party) in a different form, it’s always a scam. There should be some ceremony whenever someone turns 16 or somethin…

What amazes me is that americans still use cheques, that aren't "cleared" up to a week or so. That's ridiculous.

Checks are a brilliant idea with a terrible implementation.

Idea: physical financial instrument with a specified payee (OR a bearer instrument, using the same format!), with a completely unconstrained denomination, which the payer can draw up on demand and in the field.

Implementation: reveal enough information about your account that anyone can "authorize" arbitrary transfers; take weeks and weeks to learn whether the funds are actually available and there's absolutely no way to convince your bank to reveal whether the transaction is verified, at any point; etc.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#348

Post by TheHappyOddish »

thewebcount wrote: post #91
jjav wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I have a rental condo and have to send monthly payments to the property management company for things like HOA dues. The property management company doesn’t know how to send out a plain text email. Every email is a Word document followed by a jpeg of the Word document. There’s literally no text in the email so I can’t copy/paste things like the call-in number for the monthly meeting. This same company strongly encour…

The concept of a Home Owners Association (I had to google it) is a pretty American one too, so it seems fitting to pay it via cheque.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#349

Post by TheHappyOddish »

thewebcount wrote: post #95
Nursie wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a question, where you are, does "Direct Debit" exist? In the UK and here in Australia, when I set up a utility account I get a message saying "why not set up a direct debit?", which means that a transfer goes straight from my account to theirs at the alotted time each month, for the amount of the bill. You get your usual bill usually a week or two before the debit goes out so you can make sure it's OK well bef…

We have it, but I don’t trust companies not to fuck it up. I don’t want to allow the 5 or 10 companies I pay monthly fees to to each have the keys to withdraw money from my account. I mean we’ve seen what happens with tech companies like PayPal and how they screw you over. I’m not letting the local electric company have that kind of access to my account! One billing error, hack, or hidden surprise fee, and I could be…

It's wild this is a concern for you, when this is extremely normal for billions of people.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#350

Post by shaman1 »

I don't see what Indeed and Autonation have to do with you being scammed. Autonation looks like a legit company that the scammers impersonated.

There are numerous giveaways and red flags in the process, the major one is them using a non-corporate e-mail address. I interviewed with dozens of companies, that never happens. Also there are many spelling and grammatical errors, no serious company will present itself like that.

A basic search reveals that Marc Cannon is EVP Chief CX Officer at Autonation. Do you think he is involved is hiring engineers so early in the process?

One round of interviews to get hirred? Sorry, that never happens either (unless you work in crypto).

Asked to pay for equipement in order to start work? Again, that never happens. Also, you transfered money to Destin Ellis? Why is that not a company? Where is the invoice? Why does the equipement go to them and not to you?

Also, the offer letter is signed by Manfred Eissner which is a Brand Designer (on a simple search on LinkedIn) and not the CTO of the company. Not to mention that CTO's are not botherer with these offer letters usually, it's the head of HR who deals with these.

Also, an offer letter is much longer and detailed.

Some basic reasearch would have stopped you from getting scammed. I'm sorry that this is not what you want to hear, but scammers usually throw the bait and the most desperate buy it. What you show above is that you are not experienced with the workings of a corporation and were quite desperate to get hired. Try to recover the money by contacting the bank and after that maybe it's a good time to reflect why you fell for this trap and how to improve your reasoning in the future.

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