AILSA CHANG, HOST:
OK, you've probably gotten one of these texts before. A recruiter says they saw your resume on a jobs posting site, and good news - they want to offer you a remote job with amazing pay. Now, I usually delete those texts and report them as junk right away, but Slate features writer Alexander Sammon decided to actually take the job, and he ended up on a strange journey into the world of job recruitment scams. Alex, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ALEXANDER SAMMON: Hey. Thanks so much for having me.
CHANG: I'm so sorry I don't have a job to offer you, but I want to hear about what you did. So walk us through that first exchange. What did they say and how did you respond?
SAMMON: Yeah, so I got a text. I would say it was one of the sort of least persuasive ones I'd seen to that point.
CHANG: (Laughter).
SAMMON: It was a group chat. There were multiple people in it expressing admiration for my exemplary traits and qualifications.
CHANG: (Laughter) Yeah.
SAMMON: I responded. I said, I would love that job, and they got back to me quickly and said, all right, you know, give us your WhatsApp number. And sure enough, I had a text from Cathy, my future coach, mentor and boss, waiting for me on my WhatsApp.
CHANG: OK, so you write that you actually did end up doing a job of sorts. Tell us what you were doing exactly.
SAMMON: What they told me was that I would be effectively juicing play counts for, like, low-performing songs on...
CHANG: (Laughter).
SAMMON: ...Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.
CHANG: Yeah.
SAMMON: I went through this training, and I got a log-in, and I - there was a real website and all this stuff. And I showed a lot of aptitude, I will say. Cathy was very impressed by this.
CHANG: (Laughter) You're a very talented clicker.
SAMMON: Yeah, yeah. The speed at which I picked this up, she was like, you must have done this work before. And I was like, well, I do spend a lot of time clicking.
CHANG: (Laughter) Was there, like, a single ah-a moment when you realized, this is totally a scam?
SAMMON: Yeah. You know what's funny is I'd been working for this company for, like - you know, I was working for them for, like, six weeks, and it took a while to reveal itself. But there was a moment where, after I had done, you know, a handful of days of clicking, they were like, hey, you've earned $85. And to keep on progressing in this job, you need to have $100 in your account. And the only way to bridge that gap is for you to send us $18 in bitcoin.
CHANG: (Laughter) Makes total sense.
SAMMON: Yeah, right. It's like, I'm no math genius, but, like, 100 less 85 is also not 18.
CHANG: (Laughter).
SAMMON: But, you know, you round up, whatever. I sent that across, and then back to work for a handful of weeks.
CHANG: And your boss - your so-called boss, mentor, adviser - Cathy, yeah?
SAMMON: Yeah. That's right, yeah.
CHANG: She turned out to be a real human being because you talked to her on the phone several times, but she was not who she claimed to be.
SAMMON: She told me this very interesting story about herself. She called me to express disappointment about my - when I was dragging my feet with the training...
CHANG: (Laughter).
SAMMON: ...She called me and was like, you know, do you want this job or not? And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah. I'm so sorry, Cathy. My bad.
CHANG: Well, the Federal Trade Commission has said the number of reported job scams, like, tripled from 2020 to 2024, with people reporting losses of something like $500 million last year. And in your piece, you write, quote, "it is a great time to be a scammer." Explain why that is.
SAMMON: Yeah. It's sort of a collusion of factors. The administration has taken a hacksaw to these specific departments - right? - that exist to stop these sorts of things from happening. So the FTC itself, the CFPB.
CHANG: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
SAMMON: Right, right. Exactly. So it's sort of this perfect storm where you have...
CHANG: Yeah.
SAMMON: ...A regulatory environment that is basically nonexistent now, and then you sort of have this technological expansion of the stuff that makes it very easy to scam. And so it's open season. It's a great time to be a scammer.
CHANG: OK. Well, back to your scammer. How did you end it with them?
SAMMON: Yeah, so, you know, after a few weeks, I tried to cash out, and obviously it failed. At that point, I was like, Cathy, I have to say, I don't think I'm going to get paid here. I - this feels a little bit like a scam, and I think I'm going to have to resign. And she was very upset with that decision.
CHANG: Shame on you.
SAMMON: And she said, you don't even understand this job. You've just started working here. If only you had stuck it out longer and showed a little more dedication, you would understand that it's nothing like that. And she actually still...
CHANG: I love that they're shaming you as they're scamming you.
SAMMON: (Laughter) Yeah, it's pretty - I know. It was an interesting experience. It was good carrot and stick, you know? She went back and forth. And she popped up on a different WhatsApp number a few days ago and has been texting me every morning, you know, sometimes encouraging me to seize the day and other times lambasting me for...
CHANG: Oh, my God (laughter).
SAMMON: ...My lack of dedication and for disappearing.
CHANG: This is just, like, so abusive.
SAMMON: (Laughter).
CHANG: Do you think Cathy is going to follow you the rest of your life?
SAMMON: I - well, it's tough, you know? I'm like, I don't really want to block her 'cause I think she's so interesting.
CHANG: (Laughter).
SAMMON: So I haven't been able to sever the ties yet in their entirety, but, you know.
CHANG: All right, Alex, your relationship with Cathy is sick, and so be it.
SAMMON: (Laughter).
CHANG: That was Alexander Sammon. He's a features writer at Slate, and his piece is titled "My Scammer." Thank you so much.
SAMMON: Yeah, thanks for having me. That was really fun. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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