How To Find Hidden Contacts On Hangouts
Fake recruiters are catfishing desperate job-seekers, seducing them with the promise of a high-paying job before stealing their money and identity. We recently posed every bit a gullible recruit and let a scammer sucker us so we could learn their tricks.
Imitation Recruiters Are Impersonating Existent People
Here's why this scam is so smart: Fake recruiters are impersonating legitimate people at real companies. When the person contacts you, everything appears real—a real company with a real website and a real person'due south name and photograph that appears in that company'southward directory of employees. The scammer links you to the company'south real website and a real LinkedIn profile that seems to friction match the person to whom you lot're talking.
But it's a fob. The person you lot're talking to isn't who they claim to be. You lot're talking to a scammer pretending to exist a real employee.
Here's How the Scam Starts
Fake chore recruiters don't merely contact y'all out of nowhere. These scammers contact people who've posted resumes online looking for a job. The scammer offers a sweet work-from-home job, which could be very tempting to someone who's having trouble finding piece of work. The scammer poses every bit a "recruiter" for a existent company, then it kind of makes sense that the email isn't from the company's regular email accounts.
We know someone who was contacted by one of these scammers, so we sent over a fake resume to meet how they'd try to take advantage of an eager task seeker.
The "recruiter" was happy to get our fake resume and quickly directed u.s.a. to talk to someone on Google Hangouts—in text chat and not video chat, of course. With a quick bit of cyberspace sleuthing, we discovered the person's name and profile flick matched a real person on the visitor'south website and LinkedIn. The person even directed us to that company'due south website so we could "familiarize ourselves with the company."
That company—which nosotros've contacted, but won't name here—is also a victim of the scam. This detail visitor is the perfect marker, as we had corking difficulties reaching someone at the visitor to warn them they were role of this elaborate scam. A victim of the scam wouldn't rapidly be able to cheque that the company wasn't hiring through Google Hangouts, either.
A Job Interview With a Real Fake Person
Our naive immature chore seeker (let's call him John) couldn't believe his luck! The company offered John a variety of positions from Client Service and Data Entry Clerk to Accounting Executive. Despite his resume with a background in Information technology, he applied for a client service position. We provided different information than nosotros used on the resume—the scammer obviously hadn't bothered to read it.
The interview only kept getting better and better. The job is a work from dwelling house position that paid $twoscore an 60 minutes—full time with benefits! The only drawback was that that the training period but paid $20 an hour—oh, and that the whole affair was a scam.
We were totally on lath at this signal—well, for the sake of the exercise—but the scammer actually apologized for looking scammy:
i (sic) would like to apprise to (sic) you lot that we are pitiful nearly our unseemly approach if this interview conducting method is unprofessional to yous or if you are new to all this, simply i (sic) believe the world is always advancing so it is important to stay on meridian of things as alter is inevitable.
Sounds legit to united states of america!
John's multi-hour interview began with questions almost chore history, career goals, what bank he uses, and how long he'd been with the depository financial institution. Completely standard questions that you'd look in any job interview, right? John's answers to these questions were somehow "scored," and he netted a score of 86.23%.
Our intrepid young job seeker had mixed feelings at this point. On the one hand, he clearly aced that interview and deserved no less than 96%—with 4 points taken off for refusing to provide job references. On the other hand, he'd already received a promotion! Subsequently all, he applied for customer service and now had a position in Project Management.
The Interview Was Coming From Nigeria
John was now hired at this totally legitimate company and ready to begin work! To movement forward, John would need to sign an employee offer letter of the alphabet, provide a picture of his passport, and send the IMEI and series number of his smartphone. That sent united states of america into a scramble—while preparing to be duped, we didn't anticipate a request for a passport or an IMEI number. Identification makes some amount of sense, just why would any job need an IMEI number?
According to our perfectly trustworthy and legitimate interviewer, the company would utilise the phone's IMEI to install training apps on John's phone. Only the company was also going to give John a new "Apple Laptop" to run programs like Microsoft Office XP 2012, which isn't a real program and probably wouldn't run on Macs if information technology was.
Luckily, John's new workplace was very understanding and willing to wait for John to retrieve his passport from his parents, giving u.s.a. fourth dimension to whip one upwards. In the concurrently, John sent them the offer alphabetic character—with a slight addition. We sent the bulletin via a link that tracked the IP address of the person who opened it and crossed our fingers, hoping the scammer wouldn't notice. And fortunately, they didn't!
Much to the shock of nobody ever, instead of showing an IP address from the U.Due south., our recruiter seemed to be speaking to us from Nigeria.
This could only be the outset hop of some VPN to disguise the scammer'due south real address, but it's clear they aren't a legitimate company in the U.South., which they claimed to be.
Please Send U.s. a $1449 Smartphone
Nevermind the scammer's IP accost though, because John had a new problem! His preparation couldn't start considering his phone was incompatible with the training apps. They "won't remotely install." And there's but one phone that will practise. An "iPhone Max with the largest hard bulldoze and latest iOS." Nothing less will practice.
Sensing his newfound job was in danger, John felt immediate relief when the recruiter offered a suggestion. John could provide the username, password, and security questions to his cellular carrier's online portal. John's crawly new company would log in for him, gild that expensive new smartphone, and pay for it with company funds. Isn't that prissy? But what you'd expect from a legitimate company!
Merely John was already a step ahead; his brother only happened to have an iPhone XS Max with 512 GB hard drive. He didn't desire it because, uh, reasons. The recruiter said this would be perfect. John just needed to transport that $1449 smartphone to the company so its technicians could install those training apps. As we all know, iPhone apps are incredibly challenging to piece of work with, so of class, John was willing to ship the phone.
The recruiter helpfully sent a FedEx label, and it'southward at this bespeak that John, through the magic of Google, got his first expect at his new workplace'south headquarters.
Well, that doesn't look like a big company headquarters. Perchance the offices are hole-and-corner? Some digging into the address revealed that a trustee currently owns this firm, so likely it's vacant. That's the perfect target for this scam. The scammer can watch for the package to make it and scoop information technology up without fear of a homeowner intercepting it. They even asked John for a picture of the box so they'd know what to expect for.
Of course, nosotros never sent the bundle. Several days later, the scammer is still request for it. John insists he sent the bundle, merely his new employer doesn't believe him. The scammer said John never sent it and he knows—but that's okay, he forgives John. He knows John will soon "practice the right affair" and mail him an expensive smartphone so he tin brainstorm his well-paying piece of work from dwelling.
Identity Theft, Simulated-Check Scams, and More
In this detail scenario, the scammers were after phones. They wanted to break into your cellular carrier business relationship, club expensive smartphones to another accost under your name, and swipe the phones. You pay for the phones, of course.
That's bad enough, but this could have gone a unlike fashion. Past offer you a task, the scammers have a logical reason for requesting your proper noun, address, telephone number, signature, social security number, and a motion picture of your passport.
With all that data, they could easily steal your identity. Forget breaking into your existing accounts—with that information, they could open up new credit card accounts and do other nasty things. Heck, Facebook now confined strange nationals from placing political ads in the United States, so a scammer could use your personal information to pose as a The states citizen and purchase any ads they like.
The scammer could use this whole chore interview procedure to begin a more traditional bank check-forwarding scam where they send you bad checks, too. Yous deposit the checks at your banking company before initiating a wire transfer and forwarding the money—merely those checks bounce, and you're out the money.
Sentinel Out For These Red Flags
If you lot're reading How-To Geek, you might know these things already. But information technology's possible y'all take friends and family who don't so talk with them. Let them know the blood-red flags. A few simple rules go a long fashion:
Companies don't hire through Google Hangouts or text messaging. If someone contacts you about a job through Google Hangouts, don't rely on their methods of contact to continue. Find a way to approach the visitor directly, through a phone number on its website or better all the same in person, and confirm the job interview.
U.S.-based HR recruiters are most likely going to speak excellent English language. Throughout my contact with this scammer, I noticed they spoke English language at a competent level. Just their spelling was oft wrong, they oftentimes left out important words, or incorrectly used common phrases and idioms. Their language adequacy didn't match upward to the profile of the person I found on LinkedIn. Information technology's entirely possible that an HR company might hire someone who learned English language as a second language, so this isn't a hard and fast dominion. Simply information technology should ring a alarm bell for you lot.
No company should ask for your login credentials for a website they don't control, whether that be a bank, a cell telephone carrier, or anything else—peculiarly whatsoever site that holds your money or your credit cards.
Legitimate companies won't ask y'all to pay anything to start a job. Your employer pays you; you lot don't pay your employer. Never pay a new employer for the privilege of working or "eolith a visitor check" to your personal account and forrard funds. Information technology's a trap.
Finally, if it sounds as well good to be true, and so information technology probably isn't truthful. A work from domicile job in customer service that pays $40 an 60 minutes is far too expert to be truthful. Look into like positions at like companies. Does the position make sense? Does the pay brand sense? Ask these sort of questions.
Interested in more scam investigations? Hither'due south how we played forth with one of those "tech support" scammers.
RELATED: The "Tech Support" Scammers Called HTG (So We Had Fun with Them)
How to Report Fake Employment Scams
Nosotros reported this scam to the FTC. If you ever encounter a scam similar this, you should exercise the aforementioned. Head to the FTC's Complaint Aid website, which will walk you through reporting fraudulent job offers and other related scams. If you're non in the United states, your government probably has a like bureau to which you should report these types of scams.
Considering the scammer contacted u.s. through Google Hangouts, we also reported this scam to Google. Unfortunately, several days later, the scammer still appeared online on Google Hangouts. We're disappointed Google isn't promptly acting on reports of fraud on its platform.
Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/410387/scam-alert-fake-job-recruiters-tried-to-catfish-us-here%e2%80%99s-what-happened/
Posted by: nashhanch1962.blogspot.com
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