A Born Sucker

When you feel cheated or stolen from, it’s the worst feeling. Why? Because if you’re like me, you’re imagining them laughing at you because they fooled you, they tricked you and you lost something that is now theres. It’s not just the laugh. It’s the feeling of powerlessness you have and the impression of superiority they left on you by outsmarting you. I would like to believe that there are good people everywhere and I think from what I’ve seen, that’s very true. That being said, it only takes one selfish insecure person to ruin that perspective for you.

As people look for jobs, there are also people looking to scam you. Some are individuals and some are rings of people. It’s disgusting to think about but they’re there lurking. They know you’re desperate for a job opportunity and they’re drooling and seething at the chance to steal right out of your already limited pocket book. They believe that there is sucker born every minute. So..here are a few scammer examples for you to avoid.

The Opportunist. You need a job and well…they have one. You’re ignoring the fact that the job went into your junk mail. Heck, it was probably just a flagging mistake of your software. If you have a PC, maybe. If you have a Mac, less likely. Now I’m biased. I like Macs but I like them because they are secure and they crash less and have better software that can protect YOU. But you see this great email with this great opportunity. It’s in a nice email with a PDF of the job description and guess what. You’re reading the email and good news…YOU’RE ON A SHORTLIST FOR THE POSITION!! That’s so great isn’t it? So then they send you an interview sheet to fill out and it will be questions just like a real role you were applying for. Go ahead and fill that out. Take a look at that PDF and the pay they’ll give you at the bottom to stay excited about the position. SIX FIGURES??!! You can’t pass that up. A couple days later and more good news. You’re a shoe in. The position is practically yours. You haven’t spoken with anyone but maybe that’s just how this company hires. They’ll get back to you with their final decision. A couple more days later, you’re HIRED. You’re on cloud nine right now. The email congratulates you. Now they want to make sure you can buy equipment. They’ll send you a check you can put in your bank account. When it clears, you can buy what you need. So maybe you do this and maybe you spend the money but there’s an issue. The money you had before the deposit is missing. Maybe its just a mistake. You email your new employer but no reply. They had you at “your hired”. I’m a bit of a vindictive person when I know I’m being scammed and I see these types of scams and know they are scams at the beginning. But…I play along. I answer the questions and I thank them for the opportunity but then I throw them for a loop. I don’t have a bank account. I need cash wired. I’ll pick up the money via a money gram at the store. This is when they’re true nature is uncovered. The pre fabricated emails go away and the real person comes on. Misspelled anger and colorful metaphors because I’ve redirected control of the scam to me and wasted their time. I’ve turned a scam into a good time. I like to stick it to my enemies. Maybe you just leave it alone.

The Resume Writer. LinkedIn is a hot hub for jobs, job networking, professional recruiting services, resume writers, direct contacts for companies, an algorithm to feed into your deepest fears of never getting hired, a place with discussion groups with those of your profession and many other things. Out of the corner of your eye you see someone with a survey. “We’re hiring. Who wants to work for us?” Well…you do. I mean the survey was posted in your discussion group so it has to be one of them wanting to take your application. So you click yes and it gives you a percentage of other people who have clicked yes or no. The next thing you know you get a message. “I offer an array of professional services and I can get you hired somewhere within a week. You first need to improve your resume. Send me a copy and I’ll take a look at it.” So you do and they take a minute to get back to you. “This looks okay but I can add key words to get you past ATS, ECP, OLM (or any other made up acronym they throw at you. ATS is the most used system and its real) you name it.” You say okay and they send you the link to someone on a freelancer site like Fiverr. So you grab the link and you notice a very shoddy photo of someone from a country very far away. The person messaging you has already asked you twice if you’ve reached out to the person in the link. You aren’t sure. It looks funny. They tell you that you need to reply within 30 minutes that you’ve reached out to the contact. The contact is VERY BUSY getting people hired. Now you have 15 minutes. What’s so special about this resume writer? “This resume writer has contacts with employers. They can write your resume and send it right along but these employers are only looking for people whose resumes are at the very top RIGHT NOW.” You reach out to the freelancer who is standing by. “So happy to help you. Here is my rate.” You pay it and you send your resume. Then silence. You go back to LinkedIn. “Your friend hasn’t replied and I paid her.” You get a message from LinkedIn saying the person you are speaking with has deleted their account. You’re out $150 to $200. Well not for me. I had been strung along by a couple of people like this but I was put off by the urgency. Real freelance resume writers will get to you when they have the time and they are generally very up front but most resume writers are recommended by someone you know and trust. What the scammer didn’t know is that I already had a real resume writer working on my resume for me. I smelled a scam at the urgency and after seeing the odd profile. So…I went with it. I told the lady I paid her contact but I didn’t hear back. She told me that her contact never received payment. “Well I just paid. I won’t do it again.” The LinkedIn contact deletes her profile but not before I captured it to report it to LinkedIn security.

I’m someone where if someone tries to pull the wool over my eyes, I’ll make them miserable. Why? Because they had the audacity to try and steal from me in the first place. I spoke about this at the beginning. Feeling powerless when someone gets something over on you. But you were looking for a job and someone decided it would be okay to kick you when you were down. So I took the time lead on that I wasn’t being led just to give the scammer the false sense that they were winning. That they had me. But the real reason for writing this article was to show you what to be on the lookout for. It would be nice to believe that we live in world where people won’t try and take advantage of you. It’s important not to be paranoid but don’t confuse vigilance with paranoia. Your bat is bigger than there’s if you know how to swing it. Most of you won’t play the games I played with these scammers but I believe in some amount of justice for those who will never face it.

In truth, you have to apply and get callbacks and interviews to get hired. In truth, no one can “get you hired” but yourself. There are no shortcuts to most things in life and anyone offering a shortcut generally has a trap set. Don’t fall in.