from Hacker News

How to Tell a Job Offer from an ID Theft Trap

by etxm on 5/22/21, 4:43 AM with 80 comments

• by Lio on 5/22/21, 8:38 AM

  If 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

  In the UK: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

  Most countries will have a government organisation that can help you so don't disrepair.

• by Dumblydorr on 5/22/21, 1:27 PM

  I 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?

• by blfr on 5/22/21, 9:00 AM

  > 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.

• by austincheney on 5/22/21, 10:33 AM

  The 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.

• by ARandomerDude on 5/22/21, 7:21 PM

  As 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.

• by Aachen on 5/22/21, 8:27 AM

  Scroll 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.)

• by nbar on 5/22/21, 8:03 AM

  I’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.

• by WarOnPrivacy on 5/22/21, 3:48 PM

  I 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.

• by upofadown on 5/22/21, 12:31 PM

  >...at a Gmail address...

  That's a fairly big red flag these days, even if the company is actually using free email.

• by dghughes on 5/22/21, 8:06 PM

  Luckily 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.

• by mobilefriendly on 5/22/21, 11:21 AM

  What can we to protect our companies' names from being exploited this way? Social media monitoring?

• by arthur_sav on 5/22/21, 2:05 PM

  I 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)

• by adam0c on 5/22/21, 10:32 AM

  step 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! ;)

• by rationalData on 5/22/21, 4:02 PM

  My 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)