Long, long ago before a college class, I asked the bombshell seated next to me out.
She laughed and replied that while she would not be able to find one in that classroom, her goal was to find a wealthy husband.
If you are like her, there are many things that you either merely want or outright need which I cannot provide you with.
In this web page, I will try to arm you with the situational awareness that I lacked when I thought that a woman who looked like she might have been the inspiration for Jessica Rabbit might want to socialize with me.
Specifically, I will try to spread awareness of scam job texts.
Across the world, the job market is very bad.
If that were not bad enough, scammers are trying to take advantage of people's desperation.
You have very likely received scam job texts.
If you are out of work, you may have had well-meaning friends and relatives forward scam job texts to you.
They may have believed that the texts were valuable leads.
"What do you mean you cannot find a job? I got 4 texts regarding jobs just today!"
In the remainder of this web page, I will try to educate people about text scams while trying to avoid acting as a tutorial for scammers on how to scam people.
Points That This Web Page Will Address
The Scam Text As A Graphic
The Scam Text As Text
Do Not Reply To Scam Texts
How Did "Alyssa" Get Your Number?
What Is The Endgame Of The Scam?
What is FOMO?
Red Flags
Conclusion
The Scam Text As A Graphic
Alyssa With Interactive Resources Scam Job Text
The Scam Text As Text
Hello, this is Alyssa with Interactive Resources LLC.
I found an opening that seems well suited to you.
Would you like me to send the list of options? Reply "yes".
Do Not Reply To Scam Texts
A given scam might be, for example, from:
A lone man or woman sending each text or email individually from a phone or laptop while sitting in a cyber cafe.
An automated system from an organization with employees and computer hardware rivalling that of a first-world marketing company.
If you receive a scam email or scam text, you may feel overcome with the need to reply, telling the recipient that you know that it is a scam.
Nothing useful can come from doing that.
The scammer already knows that he or she is a scammer.
All that replying does is alert the scammer to the fact that the scam text has been received.
How Did "Alyssa" Get Your Number?
Often, the contact information for intended victims comes from data breaches.
However, there is nothing to suggest that the scam presented on this web page came from a data breach.
The scam's text is completely generic.
The scammer sent however many scams to however many phone numbers or ranges of phone numbers.
In the United States, phone numbers are a fixed number of digits having the following format:
1(XXX)XXX-XXXX where "X" represents a digit from zero to nine.
What Is The Endgame Of The Scam?
I cannot tell you with absolute certainty what the nature of the scam would have been.
A reasonable guess might be:
The victim will be offered a fake remote job,
the victim will then be sent a fake check to setup a home office,
the victim will be asked to make a payment to a vendor, who is really the scammer.
What is FOMO?
FOMO is "fear of missing out".
Like many scams, job text scams employ "fear of missing out".
Red Flags
In this section I will address some common red flags related to job scam texts.
Cryptocurrency
Be extremely of references to being paid in cryptocurrency or paying anyone else in cryptocurrency.
Remote Jobs
Many scam jobs pretend to be for remote jobs.
From a scammer's perspective, remote jobs are ideal for the following reasons:
A job being remote functions as attractive bait with which to lure victims.
A job being remote provides a pretext for the scammer not needing office space located near all of his intended victims.
Below are some common "jobs" advertised by scammers.
Remote Data Entry
Remote Translator
Remote Video Editor
Text-Based Interviews
For a legitimate job, there might be an initial screening with audio or audio combined with video.
However, an interview being solely text based is a common red flag.
If, for example, the interviewer asks you to use one of the following for a text-based interview, that very strongly suggest that it will be a scam.
MS Teams
Signal
Telegram
Conclusion
This page presented a scam text in 2 ways:
The scam presented as text, so that google will be able to easily index it.
A screenshot of the scam, so that a reader might recognize it.
The goal of this web page was to spread awareness, not bring the scammer to justice.
I am not law enforcement.