Another Suspected Employment Scam, This Time on Craigslist?

Previously I've told you about a suspected bogus job listing on LinkedIn. Well, I am still looking for a job. And this time, I ran into another suspected bogus job listing on Craigslist. 

On May 30th, I replied to a "technical support" position on Craigslist with my resume. The description was a little vague, but not vague to raise suspicion. 

Today, a "Scott" replied, implying he's the employer, but made no specific references to which company he may be replying for. However, I watermark all of my email addresses and resumes so was able to track it back to the job listing on May 30th via Craigslist. (You may want to do that in your future submissions)

Scott basically said that while they have choose their candidates and it was an overwhelming response, he was intrigued by my resume that he's going to refer me to a different guy who's also hiring, except this guy offers to pays double of the original CL job listing. Feel free to use him as a reference, include this email as proof, etc. etc. 

Something sounds fishy already... If you find my resume intriguing, YOU could have forwarded my resume to that guy and put in a good word for me. Why sent it back to me, with instruction to to contact that guy myself? That's just extra rounds of email? 

So I decided to dive deeper, and it's muddy waters indeed. This other guy has a email address with a domain name that IDs as an oil company. 

Googling the oil company shows an actual stock symbol, and a website, AND a LinkedIn Profile... except the website is only one page, no contact info, one address, at the famous New York 55 5th Ave building. The website contains no shot of the office, only of the building. 

The suite number is specifically listed by the leasing office as a SAMPLE UNIT available for lease. 

And the domain name was only registered in January 2024, for ONLY 12 months, and all private details blocked via proxy registar PrivacyGuard. 

Further research shows that the company was merged into a different oil company in 2012, and effectively ceased to exist then. It was headquartered in Texas, and registered as a corporation in Delaware. It was NEVER in New York. 

This is a fake company. And I've been referred to a fake person. 

Which means Scott, who referred me, is very likely fake as well. 

And now he has my resume, and god knows how many other people's resume who sent it in hoping it's a real job offer. 

P.S. "Scott" actually tried to ping me again, asking me did I get hold of his buddy. I did not bother replying. 

To People Seeking Help on Craigslist: Leave a PROPER email!

For a second time in 2 months, I tried to reply to someone with a short computer gig on Craigslist, and found an "error" and was unable to reply. 

First time, someone was asking for a little help on a Coursera data science course I had taken before, and I was not going to charge a lot. $5, $10, very reasonable. Except when I click on reply, I got "an error has occurred".  Reload the page, retry, same thing. Cannot reply. 

Today, I ran into the same thing. 

A guy wants to rip his own DVD back into some sort of computer video so he can upload it to a video host. This is very easy if you have your own DVD drive... Handbrake can do it easily in 15 minutes (more if you have to transcode). And that's free. Then it's just a matter of upload, so I won't even charge the guy, just send him a link so he can do it himself. 

Same problem. Click on it, "an error has occurred". Cannot reply. 

So sorry if you end up paying somebody for something you can look up in a few minutes and do it in a few more minutes. But I can't help you because CL keeps throwing me errors. 

Best of luck. 

Buying used cars, argh!

Image via Wikipedia

Buying a used car from private party off Craigslist is full of suspects nowadays.

My dad needs a new van, so I was looking on Craigslist, and found a couple candidates. I went with a friend. When I got there, the guy has no less than HALF DOZEN vehicles for sale. Alarm bells started going off in my head. This ain't "private party" at all.

Then he said he doesn't have room to park all his vehicles, we'll need to go to a "lot" about 15 blocks away to see the vehicle in question. Hmmm... Okay, I'll bite.

Once we got there, the vehicle is in immaculate condition... In places that are visible. However, my friend is an old hand at this. He told the guy to check on something else, while he checked under the hood and unscrewed a cap with a hose going into a reservoir... Outside the cap the hose is pristine. INSIDE the bottle, there's a TON of crud attached to the hose. In other words, the engine compartment was steam-cleaned multiple times, but the cooling system is in serious need of a flush, with a lot of crud inside. In other words, this vehicle is a ticking timebomb. I'm surprised that the water pump actually works.

We thanked his time and got out of there.