A fake job offer gone wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#61

Post by rippercushions » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:42 AM UTC

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.

The McDonalds manager story in question: https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3688563&page=1

Which would be completely unbelievable if there wasn't security footage of the whole thing!

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#62

Post by f2000 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:42 AM UTC

The bad grammar was a tell for me - did not even come close to being plausibly from a native English speaker. That said, I can understand how someone who very much needs/wants a job could could fall prey. I hope things work out for this guy.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#63

Post by jestarray » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:45 AM UTC

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…

I understand, I had that same belief. My thoughts were that faking checks and money is dangerous and stupidly hard, and since jobs pay you, the idea that it was a scam never came to my mind until way later when I was asked to wire...

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#64

Post by genewitch » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

tjungblut wrote: post #21

joeframbach wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No "Marc Cannon" would begin any sentence with "Kindly" either.

I was waiting the whole time for a request to buy some Google Play gift cards at the nearest store.

"Look, i'm giving you the gift cards on google, that's what you wanted!"

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#65

Post by itgoon » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:48 AM UTC

shmde wrote: post #44

Do you trust any work related email sent to you using a gmail account? Cause I absolutely don't. I work in a very very tiny startup and even this guy sent me the acceptance mail through his company site.

That was the biggest flag to me.

Nobody in any kind of business uses @gmail.com. Maybe some Etsy person selling out of their extra bedroom, but that's it.

Domain names and email hosting is too cheap to use gmail for business. Even if it was a legit business, I'd stay away if they couldn't be bothered to do that minimum.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#66

Post by jestarray » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #25

jestarray wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not in the right state of mind, my brain weirdly skimmed and auto-corrected grammar mistakes. I thought it was weird but I was just happy and yet busy to think about it further.

Is English your first language? I ask because in your first point you write: > Not too well antiquated with the job hiring process “Antiquated” means archaic or old-fashioned. There may be other errors in your article; I didn’t read the rest.

It sounded right when I read it aloud and I'm still recovering from the flu. English is my first language but I still make clumsy mistakes with it.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#67

Post by 4mitkumar » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:52 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #38

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?

I've never written or deposited a cheque; I don't know that I've even seen one. But checks are alive and well in the US. Contractors like them, I've written them to myself to transfer money between accounts when electronic transfer restrictions are too painful, etc. You may as well start spelling it the US way, because we'll still be using them ;)

1. I've never written or deposited a cheque; I don't know that I've even seen one.

2. I've written them to myself to transfer money between accounts when electronic transfer restrictions are too painful, etc.

May be I'm confused but it seems a case of either or :)

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#68

Post by electrondood » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:53 AM UTC

> How much do you want for this position?

"What's the range?"

Scam or no scam, you shouldn't be telling them your desired rate/salary; you should be asking them what the range is for the position they're hiring for.

It's like a cop asking you "do you know why I pulled you over?" Don't volunteer information, just ask "Why did you pull me over?"

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#69

Post by jestarray » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:55 AM UTC

baking wrote: post #29

windowshopping wrote: post #3

Could anyone be so kind as to comment a tl;dr of this one? I am curious but it was very long and I haven't the time at this moment.

The twist was the check was to cover his purchase of computer and supplies for his home office and after he deposits it he is told to wire $8,000 to a vendor for the equipment. Implied threat is that he is stealing from them if he doesn't wire the money. Of course even if he waits for the check to clear, the bank will still come after him for the money in a couple of weeks which is usually how long it takes for these…

Actually I was not threatened that I was stealing if I didn't wire! I wish I was though because that would have definitely given it away. The receipt of my bank deposit they asked me to take a picture of just had more than enough to pay! I remember double checking the receipt in-case it had too much personal information and even was aware that I didn't want to show my balance but something in my brain just didn't combine all the pieces until I heard the words "wire transfer" which triggered memories of crime shows.

Re: A fake job offer gone wrong

#70

Post by archb » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

Two of my friends got the same email upon applying: offer to interview, PDF interview, offered job position, asked to sign offer letter, and offer to send a check.

It easily stood out as a scam, as I have read tons of similar stories on reddit.

What stood out to me is that they had applied on Indeed via LinkedIn, yet gotten into this scam loop. As Indeed a reputable place, curious, I applied to the same position but was rejected in a day, and my rejection letter came from official AutoNation address.