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How to Tell a Job Offer from an ID Theft Trap
- Lio 5y agoIf you have fallen for one of these scams the worst thing you can do is ignore it out of embarrassment. There are people who can help before it goes too far. In the USA you can contact: https://www.usa.gov/identity-theft https://www.usa.gov/identity-theft In the UK: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ Most countries will have a government organisation that can help you so don't disrepair.
- fakedang 5y ago*despair
- falcor84 5y agoI for one feel that "don't disrepair" is a great fit for that sentence and will be adding it to my lexicon
- falcor84 5y agoEDIT: I just checked Wiktionary and seems that it's quite a legit usage : Disrepair (noun) - The state of being in poor condition, in need of repair. Disrepair (verb, intransitive, rare) To get into a state of disrepair.
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoThe core part of that definition is “in need of repair”. It’s “in poor condition because it’s broken,” not “in poor condition because it’s depressed.” The OP just made an honest typo, it shouldn’t detract from their post, let’s move along. :) P.S. Personally, I also thought fakedang’s comment was fine. Just a helpful little note in case anyone was confused.)
- DangitBobby 5y agoPlease don't make corrections that are not necessary for readers to understand the comment. This is one of the most annoying things about sites like Reddit.
- treesprite82 5y agoThe correction helped me understand the comment. There may also be non-native speakers or people using translators.
- DangitBobby 5y agoThe meaning in this case would have come out to be roughly the same, as explored in another comment thread. Sometimes I'm sure it's helpful but most of the time it just adds noise.
- Lio 5y agoHaha, sorry yes you’re quite right, should be “despair”. I’ll blame autocorrect but it’s still quite funny.
- nbar 5y agoI’m always amazed that just slightly better grammar would increase the scammers success rate by miles. There is no way I would read the correspondence as legit, but it’s not bad and given the return on the scam it’s wild that they don’t slightly improve that step.
- gogopuppygogo 5y agoThis might be intentional. The better the grammar the harder they have to try throughout the entire process. Getting grammar wrong likely attracts the level of sophistication required to make the scammers job easy.
- nbar 5y agoInteresting. You think it’s a deliberate verbal IQ filter implemented by the scammers?
- hnbad 5y agoIQ is not a meaningful shorthand for anything, but yes, they want to catch the "idiot in a hurry", not someone who's paying enough attention that they could be set off by some smaller mistake later into the process, wasting the scammer's time.
- barry-cotter 5y agoIf IQ wasn’t a meaningful shorthand for anything it wouldn’t show positive returns for higher amounts at every level we’re aware of. > Can You Ever Be Too Smart for Your Own Good? Comparing Linear and Nonlinear Effects of Cognitive Ability on Life Outcomes > Despite a long-standing expert consensus about the importance of cognitive ability for life outcomes, contrary views continue to proliferate in scholarly and popular literature. This divergence of beliefs presents an obstacle for evidence- based policymaking and decision-making in a variety of settings. One commonly held idea is that greater cognitive ability does not matter or is actually harmful beyond a certain point (sometimes stated as > 100 or 120 IQ points). We empirically tested these notions using data from four longitudinal, representative cohort studies comprising 48,558 participants in the United States and United Kingdom from 1957 to the present. We found that ability measured in youth has a positive association with most occupational, educational, health, and social outcomes later in life. Most effects were characterized by a moderate to strong linear trend or a practically null effect (mean R2 range = .002–.256). Nearly all nonlinear effects were practically insignificant in magnitude (mean incremental R2 = .001) or were not replicated across cohorts or survey waves. We found no support for any downside to higher ability and no evidence for a threshold beyond which greater scores cease to be beneficial. Thus, greater cognitive ability is generally advantageous—and virtually never detrimental. https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2021-brown.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2021-brown.pdf
- Aachen 5y agoScroll all the way to the end for the short, bullet points answer to the question. (The rest of the article is an anecdote. I kind of feel stupid for reading all of that now.)
- mjevans 5y agoAs per the FBI: "Here are some other telltale signs of a job scam, as per the FBI: -Interviews are not conducted in-person or through a secure video call. -Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains and teleconference applications. -Potential employers require employees to purchase start-up equipment from the company. -Potential employers require employees to pay upfront for background investigations or screenings. -Potential employers request credit card information. -Potential employers send an employment contract to physically sign asking for PII. -Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites. -Recruiters or managers do not have profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to fit their roles."
- blfr 5y ago> Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites. This is very common for legitimate job offers. And probably makes sense since many companies see almost no traffic from potential hires.
- cameronh90 5y agoAdditionally, many companies use third party recruiters or an outsourced recruiting department, where the email domain may not match the company domain. And often refer you to a different third party for identity/credential verification. It's more like the industry has configured itself in such a way that it's indistinguishable from phishing. Like the insurance industry.
- adam0c 5y agostep 1: did you apply for it...? yes / no > yes: it's more than likely real, but remember with anything always go directly to the source and don't click links willy nilly. > no: then its 99.9% fake / phishing. Surprisingly these attacks and other forms of phishing are on the rise ever since that facebook leak... coincidence? that joincidence with a c! ;)
- saberdancer 5y agoIn IT I get "cold" offers all the time. If you have a decent LinkedIn page, you'll get approaches from recruiters all the time.
- austincheney 5y agoThe endgame was to offer a job based on successful completion of background check which obviously requires entering personal information If that isn’t the absolute final step to becoming an employee there is a huge problem. Contact the potential employer using contact information from their website and verify the legitimacy of the opportunity before submitting any personal information beyond a resume.
- maxqin1 5y agoYou're forgetting that a ton of jobs are for people that work at places like 7-Eleven. Picking up the phone could be outside of their skillset (not \s)
- dexterdog 5y agoUnfortunately some companies have completely outsourced their hiring
- nv-vn 5y agoI've interviewed with a reputable company (mentioned on HN frequently) that performs background checks before interviewing you on-site
- crazygringo 5y agoWhat's the point? Whether a background check is performed before or after an actual offer is basically just semantics. What's the difference between not getting an offer if you fail the check first, or having it rescinded if you fail the check immediately after? It's pretty easy enough for a scammer to put together a fake offer letter to send over email. Heck, some companies perform background checks before you can even interview, which saves time and effort on both sides. Nothing inherently wrong with that either. The overarching point remains: any time you give out your identity info, verify whoever you're talking to is legit -- whether a bank, company, or recruiter.
- boring_twenties 5y ago> What's the difference between not getting an offer if you fail the check first, or having it rescinded if you fail the check immediately after? The difference is that at some point you have to notify your current employer that you'll be leaving. You probably do that after receiving the offer letter, so if you never get one, at least you still get to keep your old job.
- mobilefriendly 5y agoWhat can we to protect our companies' names from being exploited this way? Social media monitoring?
- NullPrefix 5y agoSign all emails with GPG. Display public keys of each recruiter on website.
- _hyn3 5y ago.. after sending each recruiter to a week-long GPG training class.
- dexterdog 5y agoMost recruiters who call me have a pretty poor command of the language and very few even speak clearly on the phone because they've left the same message 1000 times already. Expecting them to sign emails is expecting far too much.
- andrewnicolalde 5y agoAlternatively to the GPG route, maybe just post the domains which approved recruiters would ever be messaging candidates from. This would go a long way in countering scammers that don't have access to a compromised recruiter account, for example.
- crazygringo 5y agoHonestly I don't think there's anything you can do. In the same way you should call banks back when they call you and need a PIN or something, you need to similarly contact companies directly when they ask for an SSN or something. As a general rule, companies can't protect individuals from being scammed in the name of the company (except for basic things like HTTPS, etc.). It's up to individuals.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- upofadown 5y ago>...at a Gmail address... That's a fairly big red flag these days, even if the company is actually using free email.
- ape4 5y agototallyLegitRecruiter@mail.com
- raisedbyninjas 5y agoSo their tactic should be to offer jobs at Google.
- dexterdog 5y agoIf you're getting a job reference to work at google from a gmail address that should be an even redder flag.
- crazygringo 5y agoI've interacted with a bunch of legitimate recruiters, journalists, etc. who do business over a personal Gmail account. Even at major media organizations. I don't know why, but unfortunately it's not actually a red flag at all. It's shockingly common.
- detaro 5y ago> I don't know why Makes it easier to take connections with you to the next job maybe?
- crazygringo 5y agoOh, you must be right. That's almost certainly it, since it applies to both recruiters and journalists, and both them them make a living off their connections.
- Dumblydorr 5y agoI had a phone interview with a guy in India who was hiring for a company local to me in USA. He couldn't tell me anything whatsoever about the actual job, who'd be on the team, what I'd be doing. All he did was ask me complimentary questions and praise my qualifications. Then at the end of this supposed screen, he asks for my DOB. "Uhm, why do you need that?" "It's not important, you can even give me a fake birthday". I ended the discussion there. He knew nothing and wanted my personal info and then told me I could even fake it. Wtf?
- andi999 5y agoThat actually sounds pretty legit.
- Scoundreller 5y agoNot sure why they’d ask for a US applicant, but a lot of countries’ job application/interview processes make the US and Canada look very progressive. Maybe they hardcoded the DOB box. Things that are common in various other countries: including a selfie with your application, DOB, marital status, citizenships.
- arthur_sav 5y agoI had someone claiming to be a recruiter contact me on imessage. He wanted a software engineer for NordVPN ASAP WITH REALLY HIGH SALARY. His sense of urgency, the emphasis on high salary AND contact channel screamed scam. (Instablocked)
- WarOnPrivacy 5y agoI need a guide on how to tell if a job advertisement is legit and not just to stuff the drawer in case they do want to hire some day.
- rationalData 5y agoMy biggest annoyance is with the company General Motors who requires your entire social security number to be interviewed contract. This means giving your SSN to a random person calling. Every GM recruiting house has to do this. Not even worth it, the other auto companies pay just as good(minus Tesla)
- nv-vn 5y agoDoesn't Tesla pay more than GM?
- rationalData 5y agoThe only way I can see that being possible is if you got a stock option and survived long enough for it to vest. But that's extremely high risk to take a 30-50k pay cut and move from highly affordable Michigan to Cali. All to bet it on stocks. Source- 2017 recruiter was offering 80k, I was making 120k(40hr/week). Bonus points for the recruiter harassing me multiple times about "not changing the world" until I finally told him that I need to hang up.
- crazygringo 5y agoTons of organizations require your SSN to "put you in the system", including most higher ed institutions. And if you're hired, they'll need it legitimately anyways. So while not ideal, this doesn't feel particularly egregrious to me. Of course, like any time you give out your SSN, you need to verify you're entering it on a legitimate site, or that you're dealing with a legitimate recruiter. Pretty much every recruiting process at any large company has dumb policies, sadly. If something this small makes it "not worth it", I doubt any of the other companies would be "worth it" for you either.
- californical 5y agoI never give out my SSN to anybody who isn’t a bank, current employer, or government agency, except in really special circumstances. Doctors tend to be major offenders here - their forms always ask for SSN. I never fill it in and they often don’t even ask a follow-up. But when they do, I’ve almost always been able to still get out of it by telling them that I don’t give it out to anyone ever. Or I don’t remember it.
- ARandomerDude 5y agoAs a bonus, these are also the telltale signs that you're being recruited into a pyramid scheme. > -Interviews are not conducted in-person or through a secure video call. > -Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains and teleconference applications. > -Potential employers require employees to purchase start-up equipment from the company. > -Potential employers require employees to pay upfront for background investigations or screenings. > -Potential employers request credit card information. > -Potential employers send an employment contract to physically sign asking for PII. > -Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites. > -Recruiters or managers do not have profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to fit their roles.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dghughes 5y agoLuckily for me it's very obvious. I've had "job offers" on LinkedIn that were so obviously a scam it was hilarious. I'm from a small town of about 50,000 people but 45 minutes away is a small fishing village of about 100 people. The scammers say they are from large tech companies based in that town. Yes based in that town of 100 people, maybe they catch fish on the side? That town was and is somehow always picked by scammers. I've seen "hot girls in your area" ads pick the same town. If it had been my town, a profile more believable maybe mix up the ethnicity of the profiles more, and be more not be so incredibly obviously a scam they may have got me.