There is no way I would read the correspondence as legit, but it’s not bad and given the return on the scam it’s wild that they don’t slightly improve that step.
Here's a piece from MS Research coming to that conclusion ("By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select")
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...
I struggle to believe that most scammers in the world are that good that make deliberate mistakes in their letters to reduce false positive rate. More realistic solution is that the average scammer is not well educated, he makes mistakes unintentionally and out of pure luck it works well for him.
About why they say they are from Nigeria, I'd say that simpler the scam is, easier it is to pull. If you communicate via voice, it is hard to properly mask accents. If you are sending something via money transfer, destination address is obvious as well.
These people are doing it as their actual job.
The scammers are not kids who are having fun with a prank, or hobbyists who make mistakes because they do not spend enough time on the task. The scammers are smart human beings who do their jobs, as professionally as they can.
If they wanted a foolproof version of their text, they would be able to find an automated correction tool (e.g. on Gmail), or to ask someone to proof-read it. The fact that they do not is a hint that it is either a waste of time from their perspective, or detrimental to the efficiency of their jobs.
If it is an effective strategy, then scammers who have better grammar may find their scams less profitable, and move on to other jobs. While scammers that have worse grammar end up being more successful, so decide to continue.
(I’m not saying this strategy is effective, or that this is the mechanism that explains the relationship, just offering one possible explanation)
Getting grammar wrong likely attracts the level of sophistication required to make the scammers job easy.
"Therefore, it's in the scammers' best interest to minimize the number of false positives who cost them effort but never send them cash. By sending an initial email that's obvious in its shortcomings, the scammers are isolating the most gullible targets"
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/why-nigerian-scam-emails-are...
This means giving your SSN to a random person calling. Every GM recruiting house has to do this.
Not even worth it, the other auto companies pay just as good(minus Tesla)
So while not ideal, this doesn't feel particularly egregrious to me. Of course, like any time you give out your SSN, you need to verify you're entering it on a legitimate site, or that you're dealing with a legitimate recruiter.
Pretty much every recruiting process at any large company has dumb policies, sadly. If something this small makes it "not worth it", I doubt any of the other companies would be "worth it" for you either.
Doctors tend to be major offenders here - their forms always ask for SSN. I never fill it in and they often don’t even ask a follow-up. But when they do, I’ve almost always been able to still get out of it by telling them that I don’t give it out to anyone ever. Or I don’t remember it.
I'm just saying, if you're dealing with recruiting at a large corporation and they need an SSN to start the process, that seems like one of those special circumstances it makes sense to make an exception for.
When did you experience this? Was it recent? I've interviewed for multiple jobs at GM over the years (multiple locations, not just Detroit) and I've never been asked for my SSN. The last one was in 2016, and I even got an offer (that I turned down) - they never asked for my SSN but did say it was needed for the background check if I had accepted the offer.
At a previous job I worked for a GM vendor. So I interacted with a lot of GM folks and did some of their required virtual training associated with the ignition switch scandal and being able to communicate those types of violations up the chain. It really seemed to me that GM is very careful about any type of situation that could result in lawsuit.
If they are asking for SSN's now as part of the recruiting process, that strikes me as really strange.
When I bought my first Car, a fraternity brother of mine was able to get me a GM Friends and Family Discount. He wound up having to get my SSN to give to his Father so that his father could get it put 'in the system'. Which at the time (2006) may or may not have involved others handling that info in the process.
Not gonna lie, if it wasn't for how long I'd known him etc, I would not have believed that GM would use such a thing.
Also, those programs have limits on how many times and how frequently an individual can take advantage of them. They may have used your SSN as the unique identifier to ensure you aren't exceeding the program limits. Not ideal obviously but really not all that unusual.
But that's extremely high risk to take a 30-50k pay cut and move from highly affordable Michigan to Cali. All to bet it on stocks.
Source- 2017 recruiter was offering 80k, I was making 120k(40hr/week). Bonus points for the recruiter harassing me multiple times about "not changing the world" until I finally told him that I need to hang up.
That's a fairly big red flag these days, even if the company is actually using free email.
I don't know why, but unfortunately it's not actually a red flag at all. It's shockingly common.
Makes it easier to take connections with you to the next job maybe?
In the USA you can contact: https://www.usa.gov/identity-theft
In the UK: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/
Most countries will have a government organisation that can help you so don't disrepair.
In the same way you should call banks back when they call you and need a PIN or something, you need to similarly contact companies directly when they ask for an SSN or something.
As a general rule, companies can't protect individuals from being scammed in the name of the company (except for basic things like HTTPS, etc.). It's up to individuals.
If that isn’t the absolute final step to becoming an employee there is a huge problem. Contact the potential employer using contact information from their website and verify the legitimacy of the opportunity before submitting any personal information beyond a resume.
It's pretty easy enough for a scammer to put together a fake offer letter to send over email.
Heck, some companies perform background checks before you can even interview, which saves time and effort on both sides. Nothing inherently wrong with that either.
The overarching point remains: any time you give out your identity info, verify whoever you're talking to is legit -- whether a bank, company, or recruiter.
The difference is that at some point you have to notify your current employer that you'll be leaving. You probably do that after receiving the offer letter, so if you never get one, at least you still get to keep your old job.
Then at the end of this supposed screen, he asks for my DOB. "Uhm, why do you need that?" "It's not important, you can even give me a fake birthday". I ended the discussion there. He knew nothing and wanted my personal info and then told me I could even fake it. Wtf?
Things that are common in various other countries: including a selfie with your application, DOB, marital status, citizenships.
This is very common for legitimate job offers. And probably makes sense since many companies see almost no traffic from potential hires.
It's more like the industry has configured itself in such a way that it's indistinguishable from phishing. Like the insurance industry.
(The rest of the article is an anecdote. I kind of feel stupid for reading all of that now.)
"Here are some other telltale signs of a job scam, as per the FBI:
-Interviews are not conducted in-person or through a secure video call.
-Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains and teleconference applications.
-Potential employers require employees to purchase start-up equipment from the company.
-Potential employers require employees to pay upfront for background investigations or screenings.
-Potential employers request credit card information.
-Potential employers send an employment contract to physically sign asking for PII.
-Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites.
-Recruiters or managers do not have profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to fit their roles."
> no: then its 99.9% fake / phishing.
Surprisingly these attacks and other forms of phishing are on the rise ever since that facebook leak... coincidence? that joincidence with a c! ;)
> -Interviews are not conducted in-person or through a secure video call.
> -Potential employers contact victims through non-company email domains and teleconference applications.
> -Potential employers require employees to purchase start-up equipment from the company.
> -Potential employers require employees to pay upfront for background investigations or screenings.
> -Potential employers request credit card information.
> -Potential employers send an employment contract to physically sign asking for PII.
> -Job postings appear on job boards, but not on the companies’ websites.
> -Recruiters or managers do not have profiles on the job board, or the profiles do not seem to fit their roles.
I'm from a small town of about 50,000 people but 45 minutes away is a small fishing village of about 100 people. The scammers say they are from large tech companies based in that town. Yes based in that town of 100 people, maybe they catch fish on the side? That town was and is somehow always picked by scammers. I've seen "hot girls in your area" ads pick the same town.
If it had been my town, a profile more believable maybe mix up the ethnicity of the profiles more, and be more not be so incredibly obviously a scam they may have got me.
His sense of urgency, the emphasis on high salary AND contact channel screamed scam.
(Instablocked)
