My son got partially caught in a fake job scam

[Ginevra]

The one who is trying to get a “real” job as a recent(ish) college grad. I say “partially” because multiple red flags had gone off in his head by the time they sent him a check and instructed it to cash it and send them the money for his “equipment”. He talked to his roommate first who said, “looks dodgy; better ask your folks”, which he did yesterday. He had also sent them a fake W-4, so they have his identity info. Unfortunately they did also get $200 from him through Venmo, which was allegedly a deposit on his MacBook for the job. 
 

I had him register this with the FTC and at IdentityTheft . Gov.  
 

I am glad he didn’t continue to plow forward when he started to doubt the legitimacy of this job. But I’m also really mad about it. I hate scammers!!! All of my kids, my husband, and myself have been in a situation similar to this at least to a point. I almost lost $900+ when I was young due to a scammy “modeling job”. My daughter and husband both had fake check scams perpetrated on them before they said, “hang on; this seems fishy…” My other son was “hired” for a job and never actually got any work. (This may also have been an identity scam meant to poach his SS#.) 

 

What happened to Ds is very similar to this news article. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/09/18/22-year-old-goes-viral-for-sharing-job-scam-nightmare-and-red-flags.html

Edited January 13, 2023 by Quill

[Harriet Vane]

Ugh. What a rotten thing to do. Poor kiddo—what a gut punch for him.

[Scarlett]

That is terrible Quill. 

I worry about my kids and parents falling for these scams.  

[vonfirmath]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

The one who is trying to get a “real” job as a recent(ish) college grad. I say “partially” because multiple red flags had gone off in his head by the time they sent him a check and instructed it to cash it and send them the money for his “equipment”. He talked to his roommate first who said, “looks dodgy; better ask your folks”, which he did yesterday. He had also sent them a fake W-4, so they have his identity info. Unfortunately they did also get $200 from him through Venmo, which was allegedly a deposit on his MacBook for the job.

When my husband was looking for work, he did a phone interview (I think -- it may have been something face to face over the computer) for a company -- and they hired him later that day. But it was work from home and he needed specific equipment. They sent him what was needed so he could start looking for it. He would be reimbursed after 30 days on the job, I believe were the terms.

The thing that sent up red flags was when we went looking for the equipment and could not find it ANYWHERE. Not to mention, the specs were pretty old based on current technology.  At first he was going to ask for advice from the company (He had a phone number for his contact and an email) as to where to get the required equipment.

 

But the old technology made us both suspicious and I suggested he Internet search the company and when he did -- there was a big old warning on their page that they were NOT hiring for (position my husband had just been "hired" for) -- after which we realized it was just a scam and he sank into despondency for a while. (He'd been looking and gotten excited to FINALLY find someone interested in him. It was demoralizing to realize it was just a scammer)

Edited January 13, 2023 by vonfirmath

[Corraleno]

Thank you so much for posting this, Quill! DD is currently looking for a job and I could totally see her falling for this hook, line, and sinker. I've forwarded the news story to her and asked that she check with me before giving out any info like SS# or drivers license.

[mommyoffive]

Oh wow, I am sorry that happened to him.  But thank you for posting this. I had never heard of people scamming people in regards to getting a job.  

 

[Garga]

Oh dear Lord. Your poor son. It’s already been a struggle to find work and now this. 

But thanks for the heads up. I’ll be sure to tell my guys that when it’s time to find a “real job” that a real company won’t ask for your personal info or money up front, and if they do, it’s a scam. So, thanks for letting us all know. 

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

he sank into despondency for a while. (He'd been looking and gotten excited to FINALLY find someone interested in him. It was demoralizing to realize it was just a scammer)

I’m so sorry that happened and yes, this is exactly how Ds felt. I shared with him the story of the time I got scammed and the time his dad was targeted, too. All to reassure him that he needn’t feel foolish or bad about himself. It’s the scammers who are bad people.

 

I even told him how, when I reflected on my own experience, I could see how they “groomed” me along the way to believe in it. For ex., (I was like 26yo) when I said, “I don’t know…you’re talking about a lot of money and my husband and I don’t spend that kind of money without talking about it first.” And the woman said, “Oh, so you let your husband dictate how much money you’re allowed to spend? And, won’t he be pleased when you bring in thousands of dollars for modeling with our agency?” Something like that. She played on my vulnerability (Wait - you don’t let some *man* tell you what you can spend, do you?) and exploited it. 

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Garga said:

Oh dear Lord. Your poor son. It’s already been a struggle to find work and now this. 

But thanks for the heads up. I’ll be sure to tell my guys that when it’s time to find a “real job” that a real company won’t ask for your personal info or money up front, and if they do, it’s a scam. So, thanks for letting us all know. 

Yes, and here’s another thing that should give them pause and I would mention this to your kids: in Ds’ case, moments after the “company” sent Ds a digital check, the guy started nagging him to cash it. “Cash the check; did you cash the check? We can’t go forward until you cash the check. You have to cash the check within fifteen minutes…” So that should be a huge red flag to anyone (and it was the last straw for ds). Why would a legit company be so desperate for you to cash the check quickly? There’s not one reason. 
 

That’s what happened when dh was almost scammed and that happened to dd too. Lots of pressure to immediately cash the check. Why? What legitimate reason would there be? 
 

And for me, with the “modeling agency” - “you have to sign the contract *now*. If you can’t commit right now, then never mind. Do you make your own decisions or does your husband make them for you? You have to sign now…” I wish I had had the wisdom and life experience at the time to say, “Why? Why can’t I think it over, talk to my husband or my parents? Why can I sign your stupid contract tommorow or next week?” 

[kbutton]

Am I the only one that didn't find the article's tips to be reassuring for avoiding scams?

Several of the things they say not to do are barely different from a real job scenario. Barely and in a spidey-sense barely different. Most are not different from what people now have to do to do business with a retailer--download this app, sign this form. 

 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Am I the only one that didn't find the article's tips to be reassuring for avoiding scams?

Several of the things they say not to do are barely different from a real job scenario. Barely and in a spidey-sense barely different. Most are not different from what people now have to do to do business with a retailer--download this app, sign this form. 

 

I think it *is* pretty hard to differentiate between legit things and scams. Some are very sophisticated. I think it *does* come down to spidey-sense. There were spidey-sense things ds was bothered by repeatedly, and when he FT’d me and asked me how to fill out something on the W-4, that started to sound off to me. The form had boxes on there I have never seen before. I goggled a sample, thinking maybe it was just new for 2023 and still didn’t see anything like that example. I told him to leave those boxes blank and the employer could make sure they were correct. 
 

But there were other things that bothered him. The contact on Venmo looked like Joe Average. It was unprofessional. He looked at the website and it was full of formatting and grammatical errors. 
 

So…I do think a lot of it comes down to spidey-sense. If your gut is saying, “Hang on though…”, listen to this. 

[EmilyGF]

9 minutes ago, Quill said:

I think it *is* pretty hard to differentiate between legit things and scams. Some are very sophisticated. I think it *does* come down to spidey-sense. There were spidey-sense things ds was bothered by repeatedly, and when he FT’d me and asked me how to fill out something on the W-4, that started to sound off to me. The form had boxes on there I have never seen before. I goggled a sample, thinking maybe it was just new for 2023 and still didn’t see anything like that example. I told him to leave those boxes blank and the employer could make sure they were correct. 
 

But there were other things that bothered him. The contact on Venmo looked like Joe Average. It was unprofessional. He looked at the website and it was full of formatting and grammatical errors. 
 

So…I do think a lot of it comes down to spidey-sense. If your gut is saying, “Hang on though…”, listen to this. 

My recent experience with jobs is that HR takes a long time. Anything that involved pressure to move quickly would make me nervous.

Have others had this experience with HR? Or is it just in the industry I'm in?

[Indigo Blue]

It can happen to anybody. Your son shouldn’t feel bad. It even happened to Jim Browning himself. 
 

Once, I thought I was on the phone with Norton. I was in a rush and didn’t think to take the time to verify the authenticity of the tech support number. Thankfully I realized before too long something was off, and I just ended the call. 
 

Thank goodness they didn’t get away with scamming your son. 

[kbutton]

15 minutes ago, Quill said:

I think it *is* pretty hard to differentiate between legit things and scams. Some are very sophisticated. I think it *does* come down to spidey-sense. There were spidey-sense things ds was bothered by repeatedly, and when he FT’d me and asked me how to fill out something on the W-4, that started to sound off to me. The form had boxes on there I have never seen before. I goggled a sample, thinking maybe it was just new for 2023 and still didn’t see anything like that example. I told him to leave those boxes blank and the employer could make sure they were correct. 
 

But there were other things that bothered him. The contact on Venmo looked like Joe Average. It was unprofessional. He looked at the website and it was full of formatting and grammatical errors. 
 

So…I do think a lot of it comes down to spidey-sense. If your gut is saying, “Hang on though…”, listen to this. 

That is more specific and helpful to me, but not so much to people I know in the demographic of "oblivious to the fact that this looks like a kindergartener drew it up." I know tons of people like that--they spent the entire pandemic so far sending me crap or posting crap on FB that was clearly from wacko websites with the same sorts of unprofessional features, lol! 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, EmilyGF said:

My recent experience with jobs is that HR takes a long time. Anything that involved pressure to move quickly would make me nervous.

Have others had this experience with HR? Or is it just in the industry I'm in?

This was one of the red flags to him. It was all processed much too quickly. He said to his roommate, “This is too easy. It doesn’t feel right. They haven’t even seen me or used Zoom or Google Meet. Why would they send me a check?” 
 

A legitimate job *could* move quickly too, though. When my dd got her first law firm job, she was asked to start the following Monday. She was meeting them for the first time and had a job two hours later. 

[TravelingChris]

1 hour ago, Scarlett said:

That is terrible Quill. 

I worry about my kids and parents falling for these scams.  

At our house, we watch the late local news from the night before at breakfast and the scanners are the most infuriating stories.  Because do often, these people receive almost no sentence or very little time in prison and they go right back to scamming.  The whole giant FTX scam had a older man associated w SBF and the other youngsters who was involved previously w Enron and some poker website scam too.

I was at an educational fair on Tuesday and was talking w a man who is a fraud expert who will be offering a class labeled 'Senior Safety' but I mentioned to him hoe both my youngest daughter and I ended up w other problems because we actually payed attention to the warning to about replying, clicking, opening  up suspicious emails.  Dd2 missed a company personnel self questionnaire to give her own  assessment of her work that she was supposed to do before her 2 year performance review -  it was sent from an outside company with a email address that had nothing to indicate it was something from her own company.

Then I also freaked out for a few minutes because I opened and checked the link of a Tricare email ( Tricare is part of the US Govt, the military health and dental insurances)  and then I saw it had a non- governmental email address.  Without notifying us, Tricare decided to use a contractor to send us importent info and that contractor used their own email address.  Fortunately, I was able to find thst quickly.

But last Spring. I got to a scammy clothing website based in the UK, instead of the company based in NE  USA. They carry the same type of clothing as the US company and I didn't realize until the next day that I was charged by this UK company - which quick research told me they do send the clothes but a) very poor quality b) there are gigantic costs to returning from the company itself, not withstanding the extra postage and hassle of custom papers you need to send with the return package.   I quickly called my bank (I was at our big set festival w have at the end of April every year), and they reversed charges and told me to not use that card because they will send me a new debit card.

The man at the educational fair said that yes, all the anti-fraud issues are very much for people of almost all ages. And that yea, he also has encountered the problem of companies and/or  government sending emails from unknown previously addresses.  It is like they say one thing but then do the other.

@Quill  sorry about your son and this fraud.  My dd2 encountered a job situation that wasn't a fraud but was sketchy.  She graduated w a BS in Computer Science w/ minor in Physics in '19.  One company that wanted her had a very strange procedure- you go somewhere like TX for a two week training period and then they place you in some company, organization, or government, and you are locked in for a year.  They were offering 75k per year.  She has health problems and already was hesitant because potentially she could be placed in a very remote area far from a hospital and having no allergists anywhere within reasonable driving distance.  We also pointed out that a boy from our church wh9 graduated from Harvard w CS degree was making 95K to start in SF and had to share an apartment with a number of other people, which, if she was sent there w 75K, not only would be much harder to finagle but there was a very good reason she can't have random roommates or she may not survive.  She had to have the only single w/ private bath in her college which was in the male dorm.  She has a super serious anaphylactic reaction  ( bp drops to almost zero,, along w throat swelling)  to citrus smells-  which are used in tons of both grooming and cleaning products.  Random roommates who may or may not be willing to forgo these products and fruits in their shared apartment are z recipe for multiple ambulance rides and ER visits.  

So 75k a year, plus fully paid 2 week training w food and lodging would work if in our area or many other areas of the country.  But most likely, they were supplying contract workers on the cheap to high cost areas and unfavorable living areas where those companies couldn't get enough workers.  This was pre- Covid and hardly any jobs were at home  work.

 

[gstharr]

Some legitimate jobs have a scammy side to them.  My first so called job after graduating H.S. was with  an international company to do outside sales of home fire alarms. Back then, residential alarms were not well known.  I underwent three weeks of sales training along with 40 other H.S. grads. We trained on the product and the spiel.  These alarms were $200 each, at a  time when new VWs were around $2500.  About the second week of training, they started telling of how our first sales presentations were to be to our relatives, and one of the trainers would go along to coach us.  Then every day they became more demanding about us setting up these family presentations.  It then became that we could not get our sales kits until we gave them our family lists.  At that the point, I, and several others, realized that the scam was to use us to sale these way  over priced fire detectors to our relatives.  All who refused to divulge the list were fired.

[livetoread]

8 minutes ago, gstharr said:

Some legitimate jobs have a scammy side to them.  My first so called job after graduating H.S. was with  an international company to do outside sales of home fire alarms. Back then, residential alarms were not well known.  I underwent three weeks of sales training along with 40 other H.S. grads. We trained on the product and the spiel.  These alarms were $200 each, at a  time when new VWs were around $2500.  About the second week of training, they started telling of how our first sales presentations were to be to our relatives, and one of the trainers would go along to coach us.  Then every day they became more demanding about us setting up these family presentations.  It then became that we could not get our sales kits until we gave them our family lists.  At that the point, I, and several others, realized that the scam was to use us to sale these way  over priced fire detectors to our relatives.  All who refused to divulge the list were fired.

Yes there are tons of sales jobs that are scammy. My son has swum in those waters, lol. Sleazy people doing scammy things. When you are young and easily impressed by big talking swagger, it's easy to believe you, too, will make tons of money say going door to door selling whatever or hawking merchandise in a Sam's Club, but reality hits you quickly. Even worse though, the big talking swaggerers blame the person for not quickly raking in tons of money. Ugh, as a mom watching it ,it really made me want to knock some heads together. Son and I had some talks about avoiding jobs that are tailor made for those with Antisocial Personality Disorder.

He almost took a job at a legit insurance company, but they were super high pressure and wanted the new hires to do the same thing - hit up relatives first - and he knew that wouldn't be well received, lol.

[Spy Car]

My son had a similar situation.

Just as he was entering university this past Fall, my son received an email at his freshy-created university address that claimed to be from a member of the facility that offered him a job that was "too good to be true." My kid was pretty excited by his good fortune.

I was sure it was "fishy" and contacted the school. It was a scam.

Bill

[Grace Hopper]

I’m so sorry. What a mess. My mom lost thousands to scammers before my brother intervened and changed up all her bank accounts. Hope the lost funds didn’t put your son in too much of a financial pinch. Glad it was caught. 
 

In time the FTC may catch up to the bad guys and if so, a reimbursement check might eventually show up in the mailbox one day. Don’t count on it though. 

[pinball]

IIRC, A few years ago, a member on the College Board had a child who got taken advantage of her first week or so away from home.

She got a call from one of those (either) your computer has a virus or your account has been compromised. I’m pretty sure she paid them to fix it…

That’s another thing to warn our loved ones about