How Did I Save Myself From a Potential Remote-Job SCAM
By: Jai Shree
Tags: Remote Working, Jobs, Scam, Fraud Prevention, Fraud

“Hi, Jai We need full time writers who can work with us long term You should be able to write articles and web blogs. You should prepare fresh aws/azure environment to work with us https://aws/azure.amazon.com You should know about wordpress blogging and how to add articles.”

I got this personalized note from a profile on LinkedIn on September 5th i.e., two weeks ago. And this incident taught me a big lesson this Teachers’ day.

Since I am a content writer, constantly looking for opportunities from all over the world, I got excited to get such a note from a person who claimed to belong to the US in his LinkedIn profile. But my happiness didn’t last long when suspect and doubts hovered my mind (And I couldn’t be more thankful for that.)

Now, let me tell you the whole story.

So, I got this note from a LinkedIn profile around 1:06 PM IST. I am telling you the exact timing because it also helped me generating doubts about them. (More on this later)

This person’s profile’s key identity included-

Name- Anintish Yakov. And now I found out that his profile is not available on LinkedIn.

Profile of Antinish Yakov on LinkedIn

2. Profession- Recruiter at a big and reputed company for 7 years. (I am not mentioning the name of the company for obvious reasons)

3. Profile activity- Nothing. No likes, no comments on others' posts, no updated posts. Absolutely blank history.

Anyway, I replied with a thank you and showed interest. He then asked me for my Outlook mail ID and patiently waited for me to join a group on Microsoft Teams he sent the link to via email. I joined the group.

There were 3 people in the group but they didn’t include the person who contacted me on LinkedIn. One person (Ulises Monroe) called himself the CEO, the second one denoted himself as the CTO (Thatcher Fallon) of the company, and the other one (Ian Brown) was being called the Product Manager.

The “CEO” asked me a few generic questions in the name of the interview in the chat itself and asked me to create a Microsoft Azure account.

When I asked if they are considering me to hire, they said yes. To be honest, I was on cloud nine.

But they seemed to be in some kind of hurry. I asked them about their company website and job description before joining any group. They did send me a genuine website link of a genuine company called executiveessentials.org.

Till now, everything seemed mostly normal.

The loopholes in that conversation that raised doubts in my mind-

The company website (THE BIGGEST LOOPHOLE)- The company website was absolutely real. I even checked on its LinkedIn page. But because of my concerns, I went to their “Meet Our Team” page. And saw “Michelle Tillis Lederman” being mentioned as the CEO and NOT any Ulises Monroe. English errors- After those prepared interview questions, when I started cross-questioning about their company and everything, I found so many errors in their grammar and that seemed quite unprofessional. Impatience- They looked desperate for me to join that group in Azure they were talking about. They kept telling me to join that group even before telling me the job description, salary, and information about their company. An offer that seemed “Too good to be true”- When I enquired about the payment and working hours, they asked me my hourly rate. I told $15 per hour. Now, $15*40h*4weeks becomes $2400. They said they will pay me $2500 for the first month and after that, the salary will be reconsidered. Now think, instead of negotiating they offered me an extra $100. The “interview”- I couldn’t believe that an interview could be this easy. No questions on skills, no face-to-face video chat, no cross-questioning on my replies, no question about my working experience and the industries. The time difference between the US and India- I checked the time difference on Google and found out that the conversation went on at an odd timing and not during office hours in the US. Why me?! Usually, companies say that they will get back to the candidate after interviewing other candidates. But they confirmed my job just after those 5 questions. That seemed odd.

WHAT DID I DO NEXT

Long live Google- I Googled about the remote-job scams and how to identify them. And found out the exact signs I acknowledged during this incident.

2. Confrontation- I asked them regarding the CEO confusion. They didn’t reply for hours.

3. Enquiring the source- I then texted Yakov who had approached me on LinkedIn and showed my concerns towards the issue. He too didn’t reply. And mind you, before I joined that group on Microsoft teams, he was so quick to reply every time I texted.

4. I insisted to hop on a video chat. But they kept ignoring that and eventually denied saying that they are too busy to have a video call right now.

After I informed Yakov, I got a reply in that group (still no reply from Yakov directly)

The group scene- The proclaimed CEO in that group said that he is the CEO of one department of that company, while Michelle Tillis being the main CEO.

AND HERE I CONFIRMED MY DOUBT

I was not feeling good about all this. Thus I sent a message directly from the company website asking-

“Does your company have two CEOs?” I also explained everything in brief and asked to reply soon.

Thankfully, Michelle Tillis replied herself and even appreciated my move.

The real CEO of Executive Essentials replied to my inquiry

Another insight from Michelle Tillis

I sighed out of the big relief. And learned one of the most memorable lessons in my life.

But it didn’t end here

After a couple of days, one more person from LinkedIn approached me with the exact personalized note again.

This time instead of accepting the request I started cross-questioning right away. You can judge their intention or stupidity with his reply.

After this, he didn’t reply to me ever. Yes, I am going to report this profile now.

If you ever come across such an incident, kindly stay alert and do every possible research before accepting the offer or giving out any detail.