Post de Teiva Harsanyi

I recently read "100 Go Mistakes (and how to avoid them)" by Teiva Harsanyi. Read my review. #golang #programming #bookreviews #softwaredevelopment https://lnkd.in/eDAZcFg7

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! #linkedin #linkedintopvoice #layoffs