It all started with this message:

I had applied to around 120 different jobs over the last couple of weeks, mostly through LinkedIn and Indeed. The majority of them were remote positions. So far, I'd only received four rejection emails for my efforts. I respect rejection letters, though; I appreciate that someone at least has the decency and respect to politely let me know I'm barking up a wrong tree.

Being a family man, I'm trying to spend more time at home, including hopefully working from home. That's been a goal of mine for years. I've had a series of setbacks and evolutions over the last few years, some of them my own fault through some poor decision making on my part, but I'm slowly making a comeback.

I hate my "day job." HATE it. Through a series of circumstances mixed between 'beyond my control' and my own unfortunate choices, I'm back to working in the service industry. Honestly, I've always hated any job that wasn't producing music, so it hasn't been an unusual or intolerable situation, really, except: I'm getting older, my kids are getting older, and prices are increasing to the point where my current income is becoming untenable. So, when I got a message of hope like the one above, I let the as yet unwarranted optimism creep into me. Someone was interested in paying me more than I'm currently making to work how and where I want to! I responded, of course, with the appropriate enthusiasm, and then the email came.

Up my "alley"? Well, yeah! (That's kind of a weird turn of phrase in a professional message, though.) I wrote back and told Ms. Williams that this is exactly the sort of opportunity I was looking for, that I'd like to proceed, and thanks for considering me. Then I looked at the "Macrophage Therapeutics" website, https://www.macrophagetx.com.

It looks pretty legit, right? I read all about the bioengineered corticosteroids and other medicines this company develops, drugs designed to specifically attack cancer cells or treat particular types of inflammation and maladies with zero net toxicity or side effects. I was hooked, at this point, because the other complaint I've always had about my day jobs is that I'm not having any positive effect on the world.

This would give me the opportunity to, at least indirectly, contribute to an organization that improves people's lives-- unlike my current job, in which my efforts really only contribute to making people sicker and unhealthier for money. I'd also get to set my own hours, work from home, and increase my current income by a few hundred dollars a week. Let's do this, Katie!

She sent me to this page for an "assessment test," which asked several questions about data entry, Microsoft Excel, handling of confidential data, and my reasons for seeking this job. I took it very seriously, and I got a bit dismayed when I realized afterward that I'd gotten the wrong answer to one of the Excel questions, mistaking protecting the whole workbook for the command to protect some cells.

Then I was directed to a sort of generic "employee application form" that asked for some basic info. I was starting to really get pumped, at this point, because I was getting the feeling that the assessment test had been good enough, despite the goof on one question. I filled out the application form and waited.

I was starting to plan all the contingencies: how I would handle giving my current employer notice; whether I should stay on with my current employer part-time in case this didn't work out; calculations of what my improved income would be and how it would help; the kind of schedule I would work, left to my own judgment; and how all of this was going to improve my writing, recording, and

production schedules for the album I'm working on at the moment. It looked like I was finally getting some kind of a break, and I was trying to remain calm and doubtful, but failing. I'm pretty tired of my current routine. The job I'm currently doing is hard on my hands and back (nightmare for a musician) and doubly hard on my psyche. Dealing with the general public is difficult, especially entitled retirees quibbling over food, and the "great place to work" mantra that the company constantly bombards its people with is a genuinely empty slogan regurgitated by a leadership largely devoid of empathy or humanity. Naturally, I was in no small way ecstatic when I received this the following morning:

Absolutely thrilled, I signed the document and returned it immediately. Then this:

Whoa, now. What? My DOB? I looked at my wife and asked, "what do you make of this?"

She looked over the offer letter, then this email; then she looked at me thoughtfully. "Do you think this is real? Have you actually spoken to anyone?" Then she looked up all the really neat things someone could do on the dark web if they had your full name, date of birth, and home address. The whole time, I had been wary of giving out my SSN, but alarm bells were ringing. All of my previous employment prospects had used legitimate identity verification services, after some sort of interview. This whole conversation had only occurred within two business days. I wrote back:

The reply suddenly dropped all formality and cordial professionalism:

Okay... no. Which "secured platform?" My wife and I had a third look at the offer letter, and we realized that I hadn't really paid attention to this:

What difference would it make whether they were working remotely or not? Why would I have to handle their money and buy equipment that they could easily just purchase and ship to me? I felt sick. My wife was absolutely right. This was the worst kind of scam: the kind that preys upon hope.

We started searching. I looked back at Macrophage's website. I honestly don't know if it's a legitimate business or not. The CEO listed on the offer letter is a real person who was associated at one time with a pharm company called Navidea, who later sued him for some sort of miscarriage of fiduciary duty. It's entirely possible that this is his next thing, but this company has no listed phone number

and did not respond to the emails we had sent. Then I checked LinkedIn and Google for this particular Katie Williams-- nada. I went back to the link provided for the "assessment test" and quickly realized that my wife was right about it, too-- that it didn't matter what email address I entered, it put me back through. I went back to the "employee application" link, which was pretty obviously constructed the same way, although this one was even more

generic, and I was a bit ashamed I hadn't really thought about it much when I had first seen it. Meanwhile, my wife had been doing a lookup on the phone number "Ms. Williams" had contacted me from, and found that it had belonged to several different names over the last couple of years: Lisa George, Ashley Williams, Katie Williams, Shannie Wolcott, and Linda Jadwin, among others. I emailed "Katie Williams" one last time:

As you would probably guess, "Ms. Williams" has not responded since. I reread the "job offer" one last time, and I couldn't believe how foolish I'd almost been. The thing is a jumble of officious-sounding jargon designed to look convincing at first glance.

I went to work later yesterday, still feeling sick and angry that my hope had been abused in such a way. I found myself hating my current job even more, as if I'd actually found a way out of it and lost it in some manner that wasn't completely fictional. I felt defeated in my job search, having spent weeks of my precious time applying to scores of jobs that I could easily do, only to get four rejections and an insidious attempt to scam me out of thousands of dollars.

How pathetic this scam is! It's bad enough to steal; it should be unthinkable to steal from the already poor; but it's a whole other level of depravity to steal from the poor by way of injecting some hope of improving their situation with such an opportunity. Should I have immediately thought the very notion was too good to be true? Should everyone just assume they're not good enough to get a shot at something decent?

The final insult was the number of testimonials I found on scampulse.com in which this miserable piece of human excrement had actually managed to defraud people of thousands of dollars. I suppose I should feel good about not buying into it as far as they did, or that I have a very bright and very skeptical wife, or that I just didn't end up losing the money like they did. I don't feel good at all, though. I just feel dirty, having come into any kind of contact with this bit of evil, and sad for all of us that could have our hope abused in such a way.

Another thing to consider: this scam is not cheap to start up. Sure, the returns are quite worth it, given enough dupes, but it costs money to set up domains and build websites. It also requires some skill and a lot of time that could possibly have profited this individual in a much more legitimate and less slovenly way. Creating email accounts, keeping up with correspondence, using burner phones and fake personae-- this person has made a full-time job out of screwing with people.

To you, "Katie Williams," whoever you really are: I hope you are consumed by flesh-eating bacteria and die a slow, agonizing death. You won't, though; it seems only the decent in this world truly suffer. I know you'll find another name to use, another business to impersonate, and another poor bastard to prey upon who just wants to find a decent job. I'd like to think you'll eventually get caught, at least, but probably not... and I know you're just one of a million rapacious vampires out there looking to feed on those who have less than you, so I'll just continue wishing you a sufficiently uncomfortable and lengthy disease and demise.

I just received a text message a moment ago, as I'm seated at my desk, now, literally writing about this phishing scam I very narrowly avoided just yesterday.

Someone called "Diana Anderson" is interested in employing me... isn't that great.

Should I reply?

Could this be something good?

Well, since they found me on LinkedIn, I should probably find them on LinkedIn. After all, I just had another lesson yesterday in how you can't be too careful.

Guess what? This time, Diana Anderson and her company really exist. However:

I'm not sure if there's any way to completely protect yourself from these people, but you have to be careful and do your best. Below are screenshots from scampulse.com of others who fell prey to "Ms. Williams," as well as a copy of the "offer letter" I received. I have no doubt the blonde woman in the photos is not her-- just pics taken from some innocent person's Facebook page-- but you should run if you see it, anyway.

I hope this helps.

Edit: A couple of days later, "Ms. Williams" contacted my other email address with which I have applied to different job postings-- same name, different fake company, "Fermatix." Both emails are tagged with my name. Does she not realize she's trying to grift the same person?

As I said before, it has to require a lot of work and organization to make these scams work past the "hello, okay, sign me up" phase...

It's too bad she just doesn't apply that effort to a real job... or, perhaps the level of ineptitude required to contact the same mark who already called you on your bullshit is the reason why she doesn't have a real job. Whatever; now I respond to scams like this with messages like this:

I have started to see this as a game, rather than an insult or an affront to my worldview. Here are the other examples of this scam...