Nivelul de detaliu al țepelor e înfiorător

Am dat peste povestea asta pe LinkedIn și mi se pare absolut incredibilă. E fascinant câtă muncă sunt dispuși oamenii să facă pentru a-i păcăli pe alții să le dea niște bani.

Pe scurt, tipul ăsta a fost abordat de un user de LinkedIn care susținea că reprezintă o agenție de HR pentru Coinbase. A dat un interviu, a primit o ofertă, apoi a început procesul de integrare în echipă, a făcut traininguri în prima zi, și-a ales laptopul și alte unelte de muncă de pe un site fake, apoi a fost rugat să transfere 200 de dolari din banii personali pentru o ”cercetare de piață”. 

Moment în care s-a prins că nu s-a angajat cu adevărat la firma aia, a oprit totul și s-a apucat să povestească pe net. 

Povestea în sine a ajuns la 11 milioane de afișări pe Linkedin și continuă să crească. 

Mie mi se pare ireal câtă muncă a făcut cineva (un shop online fake, interviuri cu oameni, proces de recrutare, contracte fake pentru angajarea oamenilor). Totul pentru 200 de dolari. 

Pe de altă parte, dacă procedura asta a fost aplicată la 500 de creduli, a făcut 100.000 de euro cu o idee de țeapă. Însă cât timp trebuie să pierzi ca să aduni 500 de oameni care să-ți dea banii ăștia fără să se prindă?

Las și textul integral, poate dispare în timp.

A month ago I started a (fake) new job.
I did a (fake) onboarding.
I met (fake) colleagues.

Scammers are posing as fake recruiters and tracking people that were laid-off recently in the tech industry. In my case, they used my AngelList profile to reach me.

I received an email from a recruiter from Coinbase. The message was sent via BambooHR. I know this HR platform so it sounded legit.

The approach was very straight to the point. The next day I did an online interview and got a job offer. It was a remote position as a contractor, something that I’m quite familiarized with. The salary was good, but I requested a couple of days to think.

First I checked the (fake) recruiter background. He had 8k connections on LinkedIn, 9 recommendations and previously worked on Airbnb, Workday and Meta.

I chatted with a friend from Binance. Her feedback was: „everything in the crypto world is quite shady and new. Is not that awkward receiving a job offer in 24h”. I also found a guy from the Coinbase marketing team that shares tons of connections with me. He recommended the company and answered some of my doubts.

So I signed the contract.

One day later I got a welcome email and a link to Bitrix24. The whole onboarding was there and I virtually met a HR person. He explained that I was going to do a 10 days paid training. I even got some video tutorials!

The first day was normal, the second day not so much. I had to install Paxful and analise this Coinbase competitor. At some moment I was requested to buy USD 200 in Bitcoins. After funding my wallet I should transfer this BTC to a Coinbase training account.

I raised a red flag and requested a video chat with the (fake) recruiter.

The person who was doing the onboarding noticed that I was not comfortable and cleverly explained that I should order my remote equipment in the meanwhile. He directed me to a (fake) landing page from Insight where I had to pick some items: a MacBook Pro, noise cancelling headphones, etc. Around 10 mins later I got an email from someone from Insight with an invoice: USD 3200.

I paid attention to the email and I looked for grammar errors. I also noticed subtle changes in the company’s email and website. That’s when I was sure I was being scammed!

I sent messages to all the companies involved about the scam, LinkedIn included. Their response, I’m not kidding, was almost a shrug emoji. Later I found some articles about this crime: cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible, did you know?

These scammers know how to target vulnerable people and swindle them. I felt really stupid and naive when I discovered it, but I know this is not a silly scam. These guys are pro, they know the standard remote first jobs conditions and the tech industry’s hiring culture.

If you have read this far, thanks! I discovered some people that had similar experiences and they feel ashamed to share their stories! Help us to spread this!