so picture this.

You're looking for work in a highly competitive job market, and suddenly

the perfect opportunity appears.

It's got the right work environment, remote, the right start date,

immediately, and the right salary, higher than you expected.

Finally, the break you've been waiting for after receiving hundreds

of automated rejection letters.

The only problem?

It was never a real job.

It was a scam, and it ended up costing you far more than it ever paid out

Welcome to Nothing Felt Wrong, where we share stories about scams, deception,

and manipulation, and how ordinary people get pulled into situations that feel

believable until suddenly they don't.

I'm Anne Genduso, and if you're fascinated by deception and human behavior, take a

seat next to me at the Side Eye Society.

Today's Side Eye session is all about job scams, which are

exploding around the world.

According to a recent study from the Better Business Bureau, employment

scams doubled in 2025 from the year before, with more than 23,000

reported cases in the US alone, and the real number is likely much higher.

One study referencing Federal Trade Commission data found that fewer

than 5% of victims of mass market fraud actually report their crime.

joining us today is someone who spent years championing human-first hiring while

helping recruiters and talent acquisition professionals become future-proof hiring

partners valued by company leadership.

She is an internationally recognized hiring expert, workshop facilitator,

keynote speaker on six continents, and the author of Reboot Hiring, The Robot-Proof

Recruiter, and The Damage of Words.

And she has unique insight into today's challenges facing

recruiters and candidates alike.

Join me in welcoming Katrina Collier.

Hi, Katrina.

thanks for having me.

I'm looking

Thank you

It's so important

I'm looking forward to it too.

especially because you have your own unique experience, which is just horrible.

so before we dive into some of these Reddit stories that I know we're gonna

share, I wanna hear more about that.

take us back to the moment when you realized that

someone was impersonating you

There have been moments.

That's

Oh, no.

Oh, okay.

Okay

You only know about one, but I

Okay.

Well,

a, there was, there was an earlier one.

I, I appeared on a website.

There was a fake recruitment agency website that appeared, and myself and

Suzanne Lucas and a few other industry influencers appeared, picture and all,

on this website as if we were working there and supporting it, and that's…

That

Oh my goodness

that was probably two years ago.

But the

Oh my goodness

have been, The only time that I ever hear about them is when somebody

forwards Gmail email to me, to my

Mm-hmm.

which is katrinacollier.com, right?

Okay

course, I have a Gmail account.

It's for my mates, right?

It's, it's, it's not for work.

I use a proper domain like most business owners would do.

But I started getting these emails, and I'm like, "I don't

Mm.

I, I don't… I work with recruiters.

Recruiters are my clients,

Yeah

a book that has the word recruiter in it, but day to

Right.

I don't recruit, and it's been years since I actually did.

So that was sort of like, this is really frustrating.

So, you know, at, at times I'd have a note on my profile, like my LinkedIn and… But

then that passed, and then this latest one happened, and the reason this one stood

out and made me feel so sick was calls were booked s- directly into my calendar,

which I thought, "Well done, job seekers.

I know I'm not recruiting, but, like, I love your, your audacity just to book a

call in my diary to discuss it," right?

I thought they By the way, I think that's a really brilliant idea.

I'm not sure the recruiters listening would appreciate it, but hey,

you gotta do what you gotta do.

But I immediately said, "Look, I'm not recruiting.

What are you talking about?" the second gentleman in particular did not

believe me, and the reason he didn't

Uh-huh.

found out, is he had invested $1,000 in this scam.

And

so tell me, tell me, how did this work?

sick.

I,

Oh

like that moment was at 4:00 a.m., and that, I think that was the day

you messaged me, and I hadn't slept

Yes

wasn't working.

I could not get back to sleep.

I was so upset for him and so infuriated that there is nothing I can do to stop it.

Yeah

so, so how it works is you get a… It's amazing.

They're using the large language models, so whether they're using,

ChatGPT or Claude, and they're

Mm-hmm.

super convincing emails.

They

Okay

profile.

They've created a job that matches it, in inverted commas or speech marks,

as I think you call it in the US, and you get this email that, as you said

at the beginning in your intro, is it makes you go, "Oh my God, finally

something that I'm matched to."

Yeah

And they use, you know, a proper email signature on it.

And they use- They'll misspell my name usually, so it's Catharina, not Katrina.

they'll have a photograph.

I mean, sometimes it's me, sometimes I'm an actress from the '80s.

that came

Oh, okay

and they will use real links, so the link will be to my

LinkedIn profile and my website.

Oh my goodness

It's a Gmail, and that's the bit where you should go, "Hang on a

minute, no actual recruit…" Well, apparently on my post that has

100,000 impressions, one recruiter does use a Gmail, but I was like,

Really?

You might, you might wanna rethink that.

99.9% don't right?

Right.

would

Right

an agency.

It w- If they're a sole trader, they would set up a proper…

They would set up a proper email.

They just

Sure

or it will come from a company.

Right.

Right

He, he fell for it.

And then my understanding is… I mean, he hasn't told me this.

This is just my understanding,

Okay

is that they then will get you over to WhatsApp at some point, and they will,

Hmm.

Try not to swear.

Am I allowed to swear?

You can swear.

Please swear.

you.

Bullshit you.

not that

Yeah.

word, some of the ones that

No

of my mouth.

but they will con you into believing that you have to have

this formatted CV, or it has to be a certain way to apply or whatever.

They will get your money, and then they will disappear.

Yeah

Suddenly the WhatsApp's gone.

The emails aren't being replied to.

the email is still alive, I believe.

I haven't even been able to get that stopped.

Ah.

I've, I… Without the email header, I can't report it to Google to get it

stopped, so… Which is super frustrating.

it's basically only the recipient can report it.

So someone forwards it to me, unless they go and look the email header up

and give it to me, I can't self-report.

I can sort of report for phishing, but I can't report for the actual I'm being

impersonated, this is not who… You know.

it's

Oh my goodness

impersonated, 'cause if you put the Gmail email address into, like,

a draft Gmail, like if you go to

Mm-hmm.

it will show my face.

It'll show me connected.

But it's like, but it's not my email.

I don't have

I

I

have, oh.

it.

yeah, that's something that they need, and I just wish Google had an easier

way for us to report and say, "I'm being impersonated. Could you please stop

this?" so I get frustrated by that.

The other thing that's happened which can help, I'm jumping

all over the place, by the way,

That's okay.

That's

that can help job seekers is Stacey Zappa has created The Catfish List,

Ooh, okay

Google the cat- or, or just go thecatfishlist.com, you will find hundreds

of fake email addresses in recruiters' names where we've self-reported and

gone, "This is being used in my name.

This isn't me." so

ah

Mm, but there's so- there's a- there's something worse I've found out since then.

Oh no.

Worse.

How could it be worse?

The worst.

Yeah.

So the latest one is, so I'm Katrinacollier.com.

they

Mm-hmm.

send an email from first name @thekatrinacolyer.com

Hmm

you know, uh, colyerkatrina.com.

Mm-hmm

they're doing that for massive companies.

They're changing the email, the domain a little

They're buying domains up, yeah.

They're buying, yep, and making it look legit, and if you're a recruiter

who doesn't have… You haven't purchased your own domain yet, like

I, I, I don't own anjendusso.com.

Please, nobody listening, please don't buy that.

I probably need to do that right after this taping.

Mm.

But but yeah, someone could do that

Yeah, I mean, obviously I have katrinacolliar.com, obviously.

Mm-hmm.

bought the .co.uk.

The .co is about to renew.

I just bought colliarkatrina.com, 'cause I thought maybe they'd do that.

Yeah.

Yep

So, but it was like I'm, I, I need to, I need to buy these domains, and that costs

Ja.

it was 70 quid

Ja

that for a few years, so at least I know for a few years

I'm protecting my reputation.

but I can't stop the emails, and they're just… I, I don't

even know why they picked on me.

Maybe just 'cause I'm very well known, I'm an author, I don't know.

But ugh,

I think it i- I think it is 'cause you're high profile.

And so this man, he received an email that said that I'm… I mean, he didn't

tell you this, but you know, you found, found that like he received an email

that said, "I have a job for you." Yeah.

And, and he ended up paying 1,000 pounds.

dollars.

Thousand

Or $1,000.

Is he, is he American or?

I think he's

my goodness.

which makes it even worse.

have a feeling.

And so he- And the worst thing is when he said it, I went, "Oh my

God, I told you this was a scam."

Yeah

everything over my LinkedIn profile says, "I have not emailed you about a

job." I've had it there for a long time.

Okay

sees my profile knows.

I mean, yes, there are other Katrina Colliers out there, right?

The … I know that there's a detective over here in the UK.

Wonderful woman.

You should see the cases she's cracked.

and there's a, definitely a teacher in the US.

You know, there are.

But any of the f- the fake profiles, they're not filled out very much.

Mine

Sure.

detailed with stuff.

You know, there's so much evidence that I'm

Yeah.

It's,

being.

it's so interesting because I, I saw that when I was researching and, you

know, I saw that on your LinkedIn.

It was all over the place.

You have it in your, like, featured section.

Your website itself said that, and I honestly didn't

it into the contact section on my website bec- after those two calls.

I just went, "Oh my God.

Okay.

Okay

this doesn't put off a client." "Hi." me

Oh.

Yeah.

Well, like you said, I mean, it's really interesting because, interesting

in a horrible way, that this could affect anyone, anyone, right?

Anyone who might look like they're in a potential hiring position.

You know, I was talking to my husband, I'm like, "They could do that to you

because it looks like you could hire someone even if you're not a recruiter."

Mm.

they could do it to anyone, so-

thing about as well?

I was like, "Why is this, why is this happening?" And you

Right

like, so I just changed, I upgraded my iPhone, and

Mm-hmm.

the first time… You know, normally it would just, everything would just open.

It's a very smooth process.

You match the phones, every- oh, no, I had to go through all of my banking

and redo every single app over and over and over, and I thought, "That's why

they're doing these job scams. That's why they've increased. Easy money." Everyone

Yeah.

increasing security all the time.

They're much more wary.

I'm making a purchase or, like, has it got the padlock?

I, I'm at my bank, you know, have I genuinely been asked to do this,

or is somebody forcing me to do it?

You know, there's, there's so much reporting, there's

so much security, and I think

Right

people are desperate and, and it's e- it's a easy scam.

I think that's why it's increasing

Oh, and it's so, it's so sick because like you said, it's

affecting the most vulnerable people.

Like, this job market is horrible.

At least I know it is in the US, so I'm guessing it's there too, in the UK.

horrible globally, to be fair.

I think

Yeah.

a, a lot of it is because there've been too many people go into

the knowledge sector, because

Mm-hmm.

every country wanted to have really smart knowledge workers because that

Right

GDP.

And then suddenly there were too many graduates and not enough

jobs, and then along came AI and there were even fewer jobs.

And so most countries, Western countries, have a shortage of tradespeople now.

Yep.

like,

Yeah

You know, you retrain.

I, AI's not going anywhere.

Anyway,

Agreed.

So,

that

so tell me about this.

Let's see, hear, talk about AI a little bit more, because

Mm.

has already changed the way recruiters have had to work and companies

hire, and obviously on the flip side, the candidate experience.

So tell me a little bit more about how this is affecting people every day

I'm so sorry, job seekers It's just, recruitment used to be so easy.

We'd, you

嗯。

either directly approach somebody or we'd advertise a job and CVs would

come, or resumes would come in and, you know, we would look at them and we'd

give you a call and you'd answer your phone and we'd have a conversation.

And, and you'd … Like things would

Mm-hmm.

really rapidly.

Now, oh my God, it's just obstacle upon obstacle.

There's so much technology between you and a recruiter.

Mm-hmm.

then there's all of the myths as well.

You know, the reason this job scam is doing so well is because people

believe they need an applicant tracking system compliant resume, and they

Right.

right?

If

Right

copy your resume into a text document and it looks the same, right, everything

copies and pastes perfectly, that's

Mm-hmm.

Because the applicant tracking system will take your document

and put it into little boxes.

there

Hmm

technology.

You know, where there is high volume of applications that's not being helped

by candidates using AI to write their resumes, just getting worse and worse

This is always the biggest problem in recruitment, basically.

but because the volume has increased so massively,

Mm-hmm.

recruiters are relying on it more than they'd like to.

if you are- a, a job seeker and you're using AI, let's say you're using Claude

or you're using ChatGPT to make your resume match the job description,

Mm-hmm.

it's gonna make you really match the job description.

And nobody matches the job description that perfectly.

So

Right.

Right, right

polished, exaggerated, perfect resume.

Yeah

But so is everybody else.

So what's happening

Yep

pe- can't tell the difference.

Right

if you're one of those job seekers who is using an AI tool to automatically

apply, which is also happening, you're

Yep.

Yep

harder for everybody because what's happening is

Yep

a recruiter might have got 100 applications, they're now

getting 500 applications and 300

Right

the same.

I'm not exaggerating.

The numbers are insane.

for anyone listening to this, the main thing to understand is you

don't need an ATS-compliant resume.

And if you're gonna polish it up on … with any of those tools,

for goodness sake, make sure it actually sounds like you.

this technology, while it can be such a helpful thing, has also destroyed

the hiring process because of this.

It really has.

it's frustrating as a job seeker too, though, because then you

realize you get all these automated, automatic rejections, right?

tell me about what do you think, like, what would be a dead giveaway now that

we know that scammers are impersonating recruiters or hiring managers or anyone?

What would be a dead giveaway that something, like, isn't right?

And you, you already mentioned the Gmail, right?

Like, and having an, an off, an off kind of, domain or something like that.

But what else do you think would be like, "Oh, no, this is not what

a recruiter would ask you to do"?

Too

Mm-hmm.

perfect.

Like, it's like, oh, like your little j- you know, do listen to your gut instinct.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I know that there's people who don't, but honestly, the vagus nerve runs

up, and our gut and our heart tells us what's going on before our head does.

So if anything makes you

Mm-hmm.

"Hmm, I'm not sure about that," listen to it.

go … And honestly, I … Before I'd even replied, would be

looking up the recruiter.

Like, is,

Yep

spelt correctly?

Do they have an actual profile?

Do they actually work at that company?

You know,

Sure

not even at the company anymore.

So a

Yes

that's a one-minute thing, right?

It's one minute

Right

search somebody up on LinkedIn.

you can do it from Google if you don't wanna pay.

Just, you know, put

Mm-hmm.

LinkedIn profile and, and, and up they'll come.

I would do that.

I would have a look on the career site.

I- is, you know, if

Sure

that's messaged you, is the job actually there?

And a-

call.

Yeah

I would be doing that.

But then the second that they start going, "You need a compliant," or, "You

need to pay money," absolutely not.

It's a fraud.

And that's when I want you to find 'Cause the only way we're

gonna stop these is do something.

So either you, if it's a Gmail, you report it.

If it's a domain name, mm, I dunno what you do.

when I had that website that was created, I happened to know somebody

that worked at GoDaddy, and that's how I got the website taken down.

Otherwise,

Oh, nice.

Okay.

I had

Right

network to get that taken down.

but, you know, you don't always know.

But

Right

make sure that the company knows about it so that they can

warn people, and if you can,

Mm-hmm.

the recruiter so that they can put on their LinkedIn profiles.

and obviously go to the catfishlist.com and see if it's been reported there.

You know, is it genuine?

And the reason Stacey created it as well, other than sheer frustration at Google for

not doing enough, was, she hopes people will Google somebody's email address.

Mm-hmm.

in speech marks or inverted commas, as I would call them, then, they

usually will bring it up together.

They'll bring up

Right.

all together,

Right

so you'll be able to see if it's real or not.

So just

so smart

But it's, it's just trust your instincts.

Does this seem too good to be true?

'Cause it probably is.

but

and it's so hard when you're, you're, when you're feeling like you're

vulnerable, you really want this, and then, and so it's so easy to just,

like, want to believe it's true.

So.

Oh, yeah,

Yeah.

mean, don't think it doesn't happen in other industries as well.

So I've had,… I

Right.

certainly Royal Mail sent me some very interesting, Gmail things.

I had one from Hachette.

There's quite a, a few going around from Hachette Group, and they're like,

"Oh, my God, Katrina, The Damage of Words, it's such an amazing memoir,

the way you write," blah, blah, blah.

And it was quoting stuff that's in there.

Yeah

was like, "We want to know what your next book is. Do you use an agent?" And

I was just like , "Oh, God, Hachette have come to me." And then I was like,

"Gmail? Gmail?" And honestly, my, my Like, I felt very flattered, then I

Right

very fast, because I saw the Gmail and went, "Mm."

And I messaged them.

Sure enough, it's a scam.

And I just … I send them onto them every single time.

I'm like, "Here's another one. another one," so that

Yeah.

them.

Google's probably

it's-

with all the reports and it's just going, "Oh my God, help."

Come… You know, they just need

Right.

Right.

It's, I mean, you touched on a really important point there, and,

and we'll look in, it'll, we'll find this in these Reddit scams too.

Yeah,

It's that they appeal to s- there's gotta be an emotion that

these scammers appeal to, right?

And in this case, opportunity, ego, I love… 'Cause they'll be like,

"Oh, we looked at your resume.

It's absolutely perfect.

We love what you did here, here, and here." You know, that is so powerful.

Yeah

So powerful, 'cause then you, you wa- And, and, and especially, again, if you're in

a position where you're either, you know, feeling like you really need something,

or even, you know, not, like you weren't necessarily looking like, "I need to shop

around my next book," but y- you know, that, that like appeal can be so strong.

But

don't, I don't think a real recruiter would write that much because they

don't wanna say… So I've always advised, like, it's best to say, you

know, "Hey, Anne, I see you worked here.

what's, what are your next steps?

You know, you could be a good match for us." They don't usually

wanna say, "You have exactly what we need," because you might

Right

and not have exactly what you need or, and how do we know

Right.

You know, some candidates write back and say, "How do you

know what I have?" You know.

So really, I don't think they would be in, in my humble opinion.

Plus it takes

Mm-hmm.

write that, so I just can't see them writing

Well, you're right, and there's also favoritism, right?

Like, so if somebody writes that, like, that way, you don't wanna, like, do that.

And, and I'm, I'm sure-- I'm not sure how it is over there, but, like, in,

in America, there's, like, litigation you could be opening yourself to by,

you know, saying all these things.

So yeah, that's a really great point.

Thank you.

Okay, so let's move on.

We just talked about what these scams can look like and what look like for you.

So now let's see how they're playing out for other everyday people.

Okay

all right, so let's get to these Reddit job scams, and I'll-- I'm gonna read them,

and then we'll hear your reaction as I go

We tried to do-- So I tried to do some that are a little bit different.

so it's gonna be

Yeah.

This is a… Yes, that's the best part.

Okay, all right.

So the first one is a fake hospice job, and the title is I Think I

Was Job Scammed, and the source is Reddit user UnderSeaNemo.

All right, Okay, so like everyone else in this day, I am heavily

looking for a work from home position.

I applied for an assistant position with a hospice company on LinkedIn.

I did a little digging, and the website looked legitimate, or legit enough to me.

I heard back after a few days and scheduled an interview

with a recruiter on Slack.

Uh, this did raise a flag with me, but they assured me that they host their

remote position interviews over text to ensure proper written etiquette, which

made sense to me given it's a position heavily involved in emails and referrals.

After the interview, I was reached out with an offer email.

This email came from their HR director, and in it, in it was attached an offer

letter, I-9 form, and a background check disclosure and authorization form.

Oh,

forms and sent them back,

data

I know, to which I was told they'd process my background check, and in the

meantime had me schedule an identity verification on ID.me with the recruiter.

I scheduled this for Friday.

However, now looking into all of it, I'm worried this is a job scam,

and now they have all my information

I

because I filled out an I-9.

They have my full name, home address, Social Security number, and birthday.

I also sent them a copy of my driver's… Yeah.

I also sent them a copy of my driver's license because that's

pretty standard for new jobs.

I feel so dumb now not realizing this before sending all that over.

Mm-hmm.

They luckily don't have my bank info, and I have not sent any money or anything,

and my Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax accounts are all frozen already.

But is there anything else I should do to try to protect myself against

fraud or identity the-theft?

Please, please, please, please help me.

I feel so dumb.

I would imagine that they are gonna try and take a credit card out,

உம் ஹும்.

and then they

yeah

it from her address.

yeah, I guess it's g- that's certainly what you do in the UK.

Like,

Yeah.

would…

Yep

Royal Mail would have a redirect on your address, so you suddenly wouldn't be

Okay

I don't even know if you can stop that.

I don't… That's my gut instinct of what's going on there.

she knew.

She doesn't, she, I would say it this way.

There is always a silver lining in every really bad experience we go through.

Sometimes we just

Sure

know that, and the silver lining here is she knew.

Her

Mm-hmm.

told her this wasn't legit.

She knew.

Her

Yeah

instinct that we've all been told to ignore,

Yeah

which is ridiculous, so, I'm very spiritual, so I'm a huge believer

in we totally know, And, and also because we're animals, so we've always

had to understand flight or fight.

So that gut instinct, she now knows what it sounds like.

So the

Mm-hmm.

time it goes off for anything, she'll be like, "Oh, no. Hang on. Mm, mm. I, it

went off before." So I would take that as

Right.

Yeah

no company is gonna give you an offer based off a text-based interview ever.

Full stop.

Job done.

That's it.

It's not gonna happen.

There would be…

Yeah

could be video, but even then, if there wasn't an in-person meeting, I would

be stunned, even for a remote position.

It happens.

Don't get me wrong.

I get booked for stuff all the time via internet, but we have one of these.

We always have a

Right.

where people are

Right.

hands, you know, and random

put the three fingers in front of your face

Like, three.

Was it three?

It's a heatwave here.

I could be doing anything, but it's, it's, so, it… Yeah, bless her.

I

Yeah

she is not the only one, but I think the lesson here is you know your instinct.

You knew.

listen to it, all of you.

Yeah

You all know.

think we've spent too much of our lives from school being told to logic

everything down instead of going,

Hmm.

this isn't right for me.

I'm not doing it." so just, yeah.

She, she

Right?

And that's what she did.

She, she logic- you know, like she rationalized it away.

She said, "Oh, well, this makes sense because there's a lot of writing," and

Mm-hmm.

soon as you

Right

I went, "She rationalized and

Mm-hmm

It was like, I always call it, like, a personality or ego.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

your, your natural self is going, "No." this is going,

Right.

but, but, but, but, but."

Yeah

it out, and making, making sense of it.

So…

Zwaar.

Ja

fan just suddenly went on really, like, really high.

Oh, well that's good.

I'm, I hope it cools you off

I, yeah, it's a bit random, though.

But anyway, reinforcing the point.

We are energetic

Yes.

So, yeah.

It's so true.

It's so true.

That's so true.

and everybody in the comments here agreed.

They're all like, "Oh, you got scammed," so,

Mm, sure.

or, "They took your identity," at least at this point.

now they-

and that would terrify me.

And I think that

Yeah

of, oh God, what's it called over there?

DVLA?

Or who- your, your… No, that's here.

Your driver's license, whoever you- that's from, all of them need to be alerted.

I

Yes.

every-

Yes

everything.

Banks

just the three, the three credits.

I, yeah, I would do that.

I would… You might even alert your Social Security

number here and let you know,

everybody.

you can alert the FTC themselves.

Can you get a

Well, yeah,

know if you can

I honestly, I don't know that answer.

I don't think so.

I think, I… There's something, there's, it's, Social Security number's

really hard 'cause you're assigned it at birth, and it's like, that's it.

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a thing.

So I'm not sure if you can actually ch- I don't think you can change it, but they

might have some sort of flagging on it.

So,

there must be a flag that it was

yeah.

yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, bless

All right.

Oh, I'm

So let's go…

Oh.

Are you, are you mentally prepared?

Are you emotionally prepared?

sick.

I can feel their s- I can feel their fear.

Yeah.

awful.

Oh,

Right.

know, and there's the shame.

Let's do it

All right, well, this one's gonna feel a little bit more, familiar to you.

A little bit.

Okay, so story two is hacked recruiter/malware, and the title is

Fake Job Scam on LinkedIn, Hacked Recruiter Profile, Fake Camera

Driver Fix That Installs Malware, and the source is Reddit user

apprehensive_way4811.

All right, so I was contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn.

Her profile looked real and had been active for many years,

but I believe it was hacked.

She offered me a job opportunity that actually matched my

career profile very well.

The offer was 40% higher fixed salary plus aggressive variable pay.

The process seemed legitimate.

There were real test questions and multiple steps, and then came

the part where they asked me to record a short video, like many

authentic recruitment processes do.

Yeah

When I tried to record, a message appeared saying my camera driver was outdated.

It gave me instructions to copy and paste a command into

my terminal to fix the issue.

That command obviously installs malware, and there was a Linux, macOS,

and Windows version of the command.

I did not run the command because I recognized it as a scam at that point.

If any job asks you to run a command in your terminal, stop.

No real company will ever ask you to do that.

This scam is well elaborated and uses a re- hacked real LinkedIn

profile to look trustworthy.

Stay safe.

Ugh

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I must admit, I probably would have fallen for that because it

Right?

I mean, I mean, I've got Avast software, which would have alerted me immediately.

I mean, that's the big thing, isn't it?

You should have that anyway, 'cause I mean, they're coming

in by email all the time anyway,

Sure, sure

is sounds horribly and flippant.

the hacking thing I get 'cause I had a really old Gmail

that I don't particularly use

Mm.

kept creating LinkedIn profiles in my name, or trying to, then they couldn't

Oh

their email 'cause I would get the verify your

Oh.

email.

And I got

Mm-hmm

with them.

I said, "I think this profile is being created using my old Gmail." and then

I had to, even though I didn't want to 'cause it was like, "I don't want to give

you this information, LinkedIn," but I

Yeah.

added, I added the information.

Now, I think the other thing is, I went ahead and did the

verification of my LinkedIn profile.

There's a lot of people like,

Mm-hmm.

do that for, you dumbo?

all your

Yes.

been sucked up." And I was a bit like, "Honestly, my data's out there

somewhere anyway." Like, genuinely, the number of people I have to give

a copy of my passport to every time I travel, you know, like on a… I was,

Right.

Right

Okay, so they have my passport.

Okay.

You know, they don't have everything." and so my profile is verified, and

actually they delete the because I asked them to delete it later and

they said, "We've already deleted it.

We don't hold onto it." So the company that does the verification process.

So I think that would be the… I think recruiters are gonna have to start

getting their profiles verified, and

Yeah

to protect themselves.

And I think if you, as that person said, you know, someone asks you to

do a command like that, don't do it.

Again, trust your gut.

Right

you can get to the real recruiter, now that might be you f- you find a colleague

Right

like, "Does this person work there? You know, I, I just want to alert

you to this. have they been hacked?"

'Cause of course they can't say that they've been hacked.

but maybe somebody can do a post them in it.

Sure

there, there's, there's means and ways.

but yeah.

Oh, that's… Oh, God.

Yeah.

And you mentioned earlier, like, they, they could call the company, right?

Like, they could actually try to… You could try calling the

main line of the company and try to get to the recruiter that way.

Like, I know a lot of people don't like phones these days but maybe if you can get

someone on the phone, then you can verify.

because if that man who had gotten scammed did that to you and had

reached out, and that's what he ended up doing eventually, but he had

already been scammed at that point.

Yeah,

he didn't call you, but he found another email for you.

Yeah, yeah, he found my actual email.

I don't even know where it is, but clearly it's out there.

so,

But

so definitely not pro- like I didn't think it was public, but anyway, whatever.

Oh,

get,

interesting

invites to co- Now people find it all the time, so it's out there somewhere.

I'm not particularly bothered.

I block emails when I get spammed, so, so for it.

Yeah.

Yeah

but you know, I'm, I'm wary and again, I've got Avast, so I have

on my MacBook, and it's only me.

I'm not accessing systems.

You know, a recruiter is in a company and can be accessing,

well, could be the doorway to some

Right

interesting stuff, you know, if they work in a bank, for example.

so

No.

Yeah

But I do think that, I think there's gonna be a step back

to more we need paper resumes.

We need you

Mm-hmm.

I think this is what's gon- unfortunately.

Right.

Right

yeah, it's almost like technology's taken us on a really interesting

path back to being human

I know.

I know.

Okay, go.

There's another one.

There's another one.

Well, well, yes, there is.

But with, with this one, there was one little add on that I wanted to mention.

So the original poster had included a screenshot of the website where

was asking him to record the video, and the little message that popped

up that said, to update the driver.

And the name of the website that popped up for the, like, the driver

was called www.wecreateproblems.co.

And so the moderator of the… First of all,

Ah, .co

not even .com.

so the moderator of the thread looked up the date of the domain

name, because you can look that up under WHOIS, get a WHOIS report.

And the domain had only been created two days earlier.

So that's another really interesting thing that you can do.

You just gotta have to pay attention to… Because the original thing looked

legit, but everything, like when he… That little pop-up and, and yeah, it's

actually I've got one interesting, again, like off

Yeah

but good, Goodreads.

"Oh, come and be in our book club." I've had a few of those,

and there is this particular group, and it does have 10,000 people.

I did actually write something on, like, is this legit?

And the post- the administrators, who I can't get to, deleted my

comment, which was so frustrating 'cause I think it's a scam.

But what I noticed was this person, who was apparently representing them,

had just joined the group that month.

Ah.

So I was like, "Yeah, righto." that was so Australian.

that means, "Sure, I don't believe you."

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That's it, righto.

but yes, and also on a LinkedIn profile, if you go under contact

info, that it will show when the profile was created, I believe.

Yes.

also,

Yeah.

yeah,

You're right, you're right.

That's another good one.

Yeah.

I had actually, I had someone clone my profile.

Yeah

had someone clone my profile.

It was about maybe four or five years ago, but it was… Yeah, I was like,

"Why are there two pictures of me and two my…" And my name was just,

like, slightly different or something.

I was like, "Oh." But they take it, they took it down, so.

All right.

hard on it.

Once you report it,

Yeah

they, they're actually pretty good, at,

Yeah

down.

But it's constant.

Like, they, they have such a battle, so.

Yeah.

I mean, it's-- that, I think you're right.

It's, it's never ending.

It's only… And it's only getting worse.

So, all right, so let's look at story number three, and this is in the UK.

It's a UK finance course scam, and this was titled Finance Job

Scam by Reddit user unknown002244.

All right, "So hopefully I can save at least one person from being scammed.

To those of you applying to finance, please be wary of

fake recruitment agencies.

"I've applied to a finance grad role, had a pre-screening call, and told at the end

that they will be putting my application forward to the hiring manager, and I'm

one of the c- strongest candidates due to my answers, confidence, and skills.

The salary was on the high end, but not unrealistic or giving any fake vibes.

He expressed how his senior manager, who has been in recruitment for fifteen years,

is incredibly impressed and is keen on getting me through to the next stage.

I was then told there's a slight bump.

I am not enrolled into the anti-money laundering CPD.

If I can get enrolled and show that I'm working towards it, then

the company would consider the-- me, as this was essential to them.

I expressed that I would get enrolled, but he said it must be

accredited, so he can send over some institutions that provided accredited

certificates and will be accepted.

Looking back, this was foolish of me, but in the moment I was incredibly

happy and the words were reassuring, especially in the current job market.

So I enrolled in the course for two hundred and ninety-nine pounds.

I'm now cont- contacting my bank to get this money back, but please be careful."

And then they put the website for the course was Accredited Finance Courses, and

the recruitment agency was Regent Hire.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that is one thing.

Actually, if you do it, is it PayPal or on a credit card?

Hmm

the scam back, but most of the time it's,

Right

Yeah, you later." Cash is gone.

Wow.

I'd not heard that one.

That was a new one for me too.

don't be lazy.

Like, so much of this is about curiosity, and I think humans are,

should be curious, but I think curiosity has almost been knocked out of us.

Almo- like critical

Sure.

has been knocked out of us, and I think the big thing is he- be super curious.

Don't trust anything.

Go research.

"No, no, I'll find my own place to do this." "Oh, no, no, you

Yeah.

one of ours." Well, do I?

Why do I have to use one of yours if there are others

Right

able to find one that's at 199, not 299, you know?

Challenge,

Right

they'll just, they'll just appear, and you'll be like… But yeah, I mean, I…

Again, go back and use your network.

W- anyone who's a graduate trying to get a role, you have to use your network.

It's the only way you're gonna open a door, unfortunately.

But stuff like that, just be curious.

And I actually think it's really hard for that generation

because I'm a Gen X, you know.

I grew up before the internet, modern internet.

It was there, but it wasn't like it is now, right?

And so for me, having access to data is such an honor,

嗯。

doesn't mean I believe the data either, so my natural instinct…

Because that's how we were taught, was to

Yep

and learn and blah.

And now it's like you have the knowledge, it's always there.

You don't appreciate you should get super curious and go and use it and,

and not trust what's presented to you, and kinda go, "Well, hang on, I'll find

Sure

course." Or perhaps might have found another post about, this kind of a scam.

But it is great that people are posting on Reddit because the, the

responses, particularly on Google, rank really high, when, when someone goes

That's true

seem legit?" And up it comes, so I think that's a great thing.

But I, I think the main thing is just be curious.

This is odd.

I've never struck this before.

Ask around, "Have you had this before?" And people will be like,

Sure, sure.

But it is interesting 'cause, because this is a different approach to it, it's like I

could totally see me getting caught up in that originally, I mean, prior to, prior

to now where I'm skeptical of everything.

But,

of

the…

But the concept of you don't have an accreditation, there's

one thing you need for this.

and you know, that happens all the time where the people will be like,

"Oh, we need like a project manager. You need the PMP course," or whatever.

Yeah

but yeah, it's that extra little, "So here, use it from one of these,

and here's this." And, and you know, like there's always, I suppose…

It's almost like a,

I know.

The,

irony

irony

scam you by doing anti-money laundering course.

Like,

know.

I know.

Yeah, that was just Alanis Morissette would have had a field day with that.

Isn't it ironic because that was… That's

Oh my God.

But, I do, I feel bad for these people, especially, like

you said, new grads, right?

Because they're already entering a job market that is abysmal and difficult

and filled with companies that are saying, "We don't need entry-level

hires because we can use tech to do it."

Hmm.

which

A-

think, this is my, my soapbox.

I…

Yeah, we

Yeah

the point that we realize that it's not working.

Like, we're getting

No.

It's, it We,

Yeah

… Being older, I've been through a few of these hype cycles, and it was

like, "You know, we're gonna replace recruiters with AI." Yeah, sure you were.

You know, 'cause I've been, I've seen it before with big

data, with mobile, with social.

You know, it's like they're still there.

Yep.

and, and

Yep

gone through, and it's starting to come down, and the reality is going, oh,

my God, humans are cheaper than the AI now, so they're hiring humans in.

So it will revert, but I feel like there's a bit

Agreed.

And I just think the best thing that any of them can do is try

and get some experience somehow.

So that might be, you know, you go door-knocking, you go talk

to your network, you go, you just go find something else.

and, and you might go, "Oh, my God, that's beneath me," but if you get

some form of work, people will be like, "What have you been doing?"

And you'll learn something from

Exactly

if you think, "God, I don't wanna do that.

I don't wanna be a courier driver," or whatever.

It's like, no, I wouldn't wanna do that either.

It's hot and hard work.

But you'll gain skills from it that you can then

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Oh, well, I will say that I think the one thing that was really interesting to

me, that jumped out at me for all three of these and, and often on these, these

poor people who have been scammed or who almost got scammed, is that they all

kinda talk about how foolish they felt.

There's that shame.

There's that I am, I… You know, "This is my fault," in some way, when it's not.

It's like these are highly sophisticated scams.

if you haven't been taught to be skeptical like us Gen Xers,

Yeah,

then may- you, then maybe you were…

up with it.

Right, right.

So, you know, like you, you might not have that like built-in skepticism.

But also

and

young and you're learning, and this

Yeah.

learn.

believe me, Gen X have done way worse, it's just not recorded on the internet.

way worse.

but it's also, you know, you'll move on and you'll, you'll look back and you'll go

one day, "I'm glad I had that experience because I'll never get conned again."

Yeah

you know, I'm glad I warned people because all these people are, are

commenting saying, "Thank you, thank you. My God, I saw that." You know, and

nobody will make… It, it's so hard.

Like, there was only one person in the comment of my post where I talked

about that man who said, like, "I just

Mm-hmm.

why he would have paid money.

Like, that's ridiculous." And I went, "Well, I'm really glad

that you feel like that," but not

Right.

understands recruitment, right?

Most

Right

You send your CV or resume in and you're never hear again, like it's black hole.

Like it's, the whole

Yep

I, it, you know, it's very easy to get fooled by it.

So I think it's a case of just realizing you've learned something and that

most people have also made monumental mistakes in their life, and you just,

you learn from it and you move on.

but yeah, just

Yeah

not your shame to carry.

They're the ones that should feel ashamed

Exactly.

And, and I, I always say that I think that this, this is the one area where it seems

that it's still socially acceptable to victim shame a little bit and be able to

say, "Oh, no, you should've known better. You're stupid," and something like… But,

உம்

but not… No, they're victims.

They're victims, right?

And the perpetrator should be the ones who are ashamed for doing

what they do to these people

think if anybody ever does shame you, I guarantee they have done something

worse, and they're making themselves feel better by having a dig at you.

most people, I mean, like, think about my first car accident,

which was monumentally stupid.

You know, and I just,

Oh no

laugh about it.

Like, I look back and go, "Oh, my God, I can't believe you

did that." But I'm not ashamed.

I'm just like… But I also was really grateful that I had that accident,

Right.

me

Right

how fragile the car was, right?

So it was like, what's the silver lining in this?

What's the be- what's the benefit to you of this horrible experience?

Because there is one, and it's a learning.

just, if you do it a second time, then maybe you should

start feeling a bit stupid.

But not the first time.

Not the first time.

Right.

And some of these are brand new.

Like, we just said that that last scam, like we hadn't heard of that one.

So like, we're all learning.

We're all learning together because they're getting sophisticated.

They're doing things that, that we haven't heard of before, and it's

constantly evolving, so, so yeah.

All right.

Well, do you have any final parting thoughts on this before

we, we head out for the day?

No, just, just stay vigilant.

You know, you have knowledge there.

Use it.

Don't, don't take anything at face value.

If it seems too good to be true, if that little instinct's going,

"Hmm, hang on," go research.

You, you know, use all the tools available.

Go find people off LinkedIn as well.

Where else are they hanging out?

What are they talking about?

Are they real?

'Cause most people have a presence somewhere else as well, so.

True.

That's, those, that's really good.

It's really great advice.

All right, well, so l- I wanna thank you for joining us, and,

we'll give one closing thought here.

that wraps up our stories and, I will say these scams don't work

because people are just gullible.

They work because they're incredibly sophisticated.

They're getting smarter about the way they fool us every day.

So Thank you for joining us, Katrina.

You're welcome

And for being so forthcoming with your story and advice.

all right, side-eyers, thanks for joining today's episode, and now

it's time for this week's side-eye question so we can hear from you.

Thinking about these job scams, what stood out to you most?

And what felt truly believable, and what would scream red flag to you?

Drop your answer in the comments because we'd really love to know your thoughts.

And finally, if you have your own story of a deception, scam, or

manipulation, we wanna hear them.

Email us at stories@nothingfeltwrong.com.

We may feature your story in a future episode, and we'll keep everything

anonymous for your protection.

Because the more stories we share without shame, the more we take

back our power and take it away from these lying perpetrators.

So remember, even the smartest people can get caught in sophisticated scams,

and it can happen to any of us, because nothing felt wrong until it did.

If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe wherever you listen, leave

a review if you're on a podcast platform, and join us again next week.

Until then, keep your side eye sharp.