This exact situation occurred a couple years ago to some people in the US. I don’t know their names, and I didn’t investigate the situation internally, so I don

This exact situation occurred a couple years ago to some people in the US. I don’t know their names, and I didn’t investigate the situation internally, so I don’t know just how smart the phishers were vs their victims. What I do know is that I got a call from the front desk people at our Boston office that said someone is here for their first day of work and we have no record of them being hired. Did I know anything about this? I didn’t. After some investigation it was revealed to be an identity theft scam, and within a week several other people were also found to be a victim of the same scam. Before you judge too harshly, keep in mind that often the people affected by this often aren’t very technical, don’t know what to look for when it comes to phishing, and are just doing what comes naturally in the situation. The scammers in this case are obviously at least somewhat technical and have a huge advantage in terms of being able to scattershot communicate with a very large group of people (potentially millions, although more likely 10’s of thousands in the case I describe). Also, while I’m sure no one reading this has ever been phished (cough), it has been _repeatedly_ found that phishing is effective, even for highly technical audiences. When it comes to recruiting, it is all too plausible that the person you’re interacting with doesn’t work for the company you’re “interviewing” with, and many recruiters start a conversation not even revealing who they recruit for. In fact, there are recruiting agencies that may as well be phishing organizations, because they will claim to have a role simply to get your resume and then, once they have your information, will start shopping it to companies in an attempt to get paid. In short, I have a ton of sympathy for people affected by this, and think the assholes who do this kind of thing are pretty much evil.