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Tell HN: Remote Work Scam

42 points by nappy-doo ↗ HN
This year, I retired from a FAANG job, but I have a profile on a freelancing website to coach people for tech interviews. (Unlike many, I always enjoyed the interview process, and have been told many times I'm a great interviewer.) This provides a small amount of income and keeps my brain occupied.

Recently, I was contacted to participate in a remote work scam, where I would pose as the face of a remote worker. They offered 20%, all I needed to do would be attend the interviews, meetings, and pose as this person. The scammer already had a fake linkedin profile, interviews lined up, and just needed a willing participant.

I've contacted my local Attorney General to file a complaint, and am investigating how to let the freelancing site know this is taking place.

While I've known things like this could exist, this is the first time I've seen one play out in real-time. I'm posting this informationally to let people know this is actually starting to happen.

Good luck with hiring out there, people.

13 comments

[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 44.8 ms ] thread
ottoflux
Yikes - thanks for sharing. I'm one of the few people I know who occasionally call to verify anything on CVs, especially when the interview feels off.
locusofself
There have been some interesting stories and posts about this on HN in the past few months, with someone even going along with the scam for a bit to alert the employer and call out the scammer etc..
nappy-doo
I contemplated doing that, but I don't want to waste people's time.
whynotkeithberg
"starting to happen"

it's been going on for a long time... Just more remote work now. There have been numerous developers who have done something similar and outsourced their work after they were hired. One I know was caught because he didn't connect himself and had the worker in China submit his work for him with his VPN creds

Raed667
How would this work long term? Are they never expected to open their cam for a quick chat or urgent team task?
barbazoo
Or actually do work? Clearly the output would be different from what they expect based on the interview. Maybe it's just about that first paycheck and they do it in parallel to multiple companies.
zerr
Ironically, for leetcode-style interviews, this would work fine since the actual work has nothing to do with such interviews.
roflyear
brother, people did this forever, and not just with jobs. interviewing for college is a big one too.
yrgulation
Pretty sure this may have been happening for a while, nothing new.
anon14132
This has bene going for 15+ years.

One of my friend worked for an IT contracting bodyshop 15 years ago. He was a pretty good dev.

His company would occasionally ask him to "audit" interview processes for their clients. They would give him a new name to prevent client from "finding out". He would go through phone screen, onsite interviews. Then he would need to write up a report about the whole process, interview questions, who he met, who said what, etc.

They would pay him pretty decent money on top of his salary for it.

Of course, he knew what it really was, refusing to do it may end up costing his job, so he kept doing it.

ethanjinsen
How does this work? The scammer does the actual work but you attend the meetings? How would you know the answer to anything? If the scammer can do the work, why don't they just apply for the job legitimately? Is it a visa or job permit issue?