I’ve recently been using UpWork to looks for freelance jobs, which has proven pretty reliable up until this last one I am going to talk about. Last week I submitted a proposal to a post searching for a team of freelancers to work on a variety of projects. Within 3 days I received a response that included a pdf letter from a company called Legacy Pharmaceuticals asking me to interview for a position and telling me to contact a “hiring coordinator” named Frank Huerta through the messaging app Line. I was a little sussed out at this, why would they be using Line of all apps and why not email? Nevertheless I went along with it, since the job market for art jobs is pretty bleak right now and I’ve been somewhat desperate. I scheduled and interview and he told me that it would not be video and would instead be conducted over Line to “see my writing and communication skills” since this would be a remote job. Second red flag. Went along with the interview anyway because why not. The questions seemed professionals be pretty legit so I started feeling somewhat better about it. Then they contacted me about 30 minutes after i interviewed telling me I got the job. This seemed way too good to be true ( the pay was supposed to be 40$ an hour for an entry level position). I opened the attached letters they emailed to me and was immediately sussed out. Some spelling errors and their logo and watermark was super grainy. They also asked me to immediately send photos of my ID which was the last straw. Sent somewhat of an aggressive message to “Frank Huerta” telling him to stop contacting me (because he didn’t stop when I stopped answering him) and he has not responded so I have concluded it is a scam. I think it’s pretty shitty that people are trying to scam artists right now and wanna make sure no one else falls for this shit.
You might want to run a virus and malware scan on your computer if you opened any files from this, which it sounds like you did.
Word i definitely will, you’re right.
Did this come through UpWork? If so, you might want to give them a heads up too?
Report them through UpWork.
Any job that is asking you to interview through 3rd party apps i.e GoogleHangouts is generally a scam.
If you’re doing work through UpWork specifically they ask not to take the work or conversation of the site so they can moderate and protect users.
I also don’t know anyone who wants your ID in the freelancing world.
That’s not the way a pharmaceutical company usually operates. Try Googling.
Ah Google. As Homer said about beer. It’s the answer to and the problem to all of life’s problems!
OMG I sure wish I had found this BEFORE I went through the scam! I feel like such a dupe! I went through the online interview and they asked me for my address and name of my bank… Yikes! these scammers are sneaky and like to prey on people just needing some work!
I applied for the job on Indeed (“Marketing Coordinator” $40/ hr.) a month ago, they just reached out to me yesterday via email with explicit instructions on how the interview would be on Skype. I had an ‘interview’ today and realized something didn’t seem right! OMG! I’m so pissed!
Generally, if they are asking to interview on Google Hangouts/Skype/“insert messaging platform here” its too good to be true. These types of interviews have also invaded LinkedIn with fake job postings to just collect your email etc.
Yeah, if you ever find a place to send complaints of fraud to LinkedIn, let me know. I don’t think there is one.
I continually get people trying to sign up with my email. Like I’m gonna click thru the set up button for them or something? (either that or it’s a spoof site for a virus download, though our IT service is pretty darn good on those.)
You can report the postings, but good luck finding which posting.
This was a while back but I never found a link to report info to. And they have no phone number. There is no real contact information. LinkedIn may be the biggest scam full of scams out there.