My 18 year old was scammed out of 3K on her first day as intern

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have every reason to be upset OP, but your anger should be at the scammers. We have IT security training, but certainly not on day 1. You need to treat this as a learning experience. You need to explain to your kid that no real job would ever expect a new hire to use their own money for anything. You also need to teach them to look at the email address and that the left hand side of a web address is the important part.

Lol. Tell that to all of the teachers who walk into completely empty classrooms and have to make them look decent within a few day's time.

1. None of that is required; teachers choose to do that as a gift to their students.

2. None of that is giving anything to the company that any adult would want. They are giving stuff/experience to the kids.

Teachers are required to do that because they get evaluated on classroom climate. If you literally put nothing up on your walls, no posters, no chart paper, no books for students to read in a library area, no rug/carpet if you teach early elementary, no bookshelves, then a-hole administrators mark you down when you get evaluated and you risk not getting rehired. Admin claim they paid out of pocket for supplies/materials when they were new so mall new teachers should do the same. Schools get away with this because primarily women teach elementary school.

I worked as a para in a 4th grade class with a male teacher who had almost nothing on the walls, basically just a few posters of athletes and a basketball hoop that students could shoot nerf balls into to get a homework pass. He was one of the most popular teachers in the school with the students, their parents, the staff and admin. Nobody cared about his minimalist classroom decorations. No rugs or star charts or nooks either.

We aren’t talking about teachers. Don’t hijack the discussion.

Some of us are. You do you.

Bringing in the argument that because teachers are expected to pay for their own supplies and decor, the OP's daughter should not have seen this as a red flag is ridiculous. You are hijacking the thread with off-topic comparisons and then snark about them.

It is not normal in most industries for employees to personally pay for things like gift cards for other staff members, and it is disingenuous to imply that it is, regardless of the f*cked up dynamics that exist in education (which you describe accurately and I actually agree with).

What I said was relevant to the comment I was replying to and did not include any snark. You need to back off, you are not in charge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a CEO at a company that frequently onboards 40 or so new staff at the same time. In the past two or so years this type of staff happens every time we go through a hiring cycle. Scammers monitor LinkedIn and prey on people who have just started new jobs and they either email or sometimes TEXT staff pretending oftentimes to be ME asking them to urgently buy gift cards. Sometimes the staff are so eager to impress because they are so new that they don't question. Now as part of our regular onboarding process we make sure to say that we will never ever ever ask staff to pay for any expenses out of pocket at any time and any request to do so should be assumed to be a scam. Staff are told to call me directly immediately on the phone or contact me via slack if they receive a request they find strange. I'm sorry your daughter learned this lesson the hard way , OP. And this company she is interning for needs to smarten up and honestly they should reimburse her.

+1. This is the right thing to do.

This. Remember the company is benefiting from her cheap or even unpaid work as an intern. such a weak security posture day 1 for new hires by that company.

[Anonymous]

OP here, she is actually being paid, minimum wage, $15/hour.
"School mom" is an alum of her high school. This mother wants to help out the kids. Her own children are the same ages and attend these schools too. The kids all know each other.

She was VERY defensive when she called me. I had to point out to her that the HR and IT people didn't even notify her of this issue. She only heard about it from me last night way after it was all over. Why wasn't she notified? She quieted down when I pointed out that her company may have security breaches if her IT people can't be bothered to do basic filtering of incoming emails. I wasn't hearing any talk about reimbursement so I don't think it will happen.
She didn't realize one could access Outlook emails online.
It's not a big company, maybe 15 people max. Having worked in companies large and small, I'm pretty sure the IT person at a company this size phones it in. The HR person lives 2 time zones away. The rise of remote work leaves workers isolated AND unconnected to their colleagues. For the young ones, there is no mentoring.
Remote work and outdated IT skills isn't a good mix. It's easily exploitable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, she is actually being paid, minimum wage, $15/hour.
"School mom" is an alum of her high school. This mother wants to help out the kids. Her own children are the same ages and attend these schools too. The kids all know each other.

She was VERY defensive when she called me. I had to point out to her that the HR and IT people didn't even notify her of this issue. She only heard about it from me last night way after it was all over. Why wasn't she notified? She quieted down when I pointed out that her company may have security breaches if her IT people can't be bothered to do basic filtering of incoming emails. I wasn't hearing any talk about reimbursement so I don't think it will happen.
She didn't realize one could access Outlook emails online.
It's not a big company, maybe 15 people max. Having worked in companies large and small, I'm pretty sure the IT person at a company this size phones it in. The HR person lives 2 time zones away. The rise of remote work leaves workers isolated AND unconnected to their colleagues. For the young ones, there is no mentoring.
Remote work and outdated IT skills isn't a good mix. It's easily exploitable.

Well they're also tax dodging. I hope your daughter realizes she has to pay quarterly estimated taxes and her own social security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really have to believe that a scam would have to be much much more sophisticated before my 18 year old would fall for it. There is no way she would ever pay out $3000 of her own money, without, at the very least, coming to me or her father. The fact that many of you, as adults, are saying you would fall for it, is disturbing. And I am not the most highly intelligent person. Is this one of those high IQ vs street smarts kind of things?

It's a lack of street smarts, not a high IQ thing. People of average IQ can lack street smarts, and people above average (a little or a lot) can have street smarts.

I have family members that lack street smarts. You have to prepare them. Make sure the kid knows that they are particularly vulnerable. And unless it's a typical store purchase, they should not pull out their wallet without a second set of eyes on the situation.

[Anonymous]

I would bet anything this kid has yet to receive a single paycheck or paystub and OP can’t see or admit the entire job is a scam

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, she is actually being paid, minimum wage, $15/hour.
"School mom" is an alum of her high school. This mother wants to help out the kids. Her own children are the same ages and attend these schools too. The kids all know each other.

She was VERY defensive when she called me. I had to point out to her that the HR and IT people didn't even notify her of this issue. She only heard about it from me last night way after it was all over. Why wasn't she notified? She quieted down when I pointed out that her company may have security breaches if her IT people can't be bothered to do basic filtering of incoming emails. I wasn't hearing any talk about reimbursement so I don't think it will happen.
She didn't realize one could access Outlook emails online.
It's not a big company, maybe 15 people max. Having worked in companies large and small, I'm pretty sure the IT person at a company this size phones it in. The HR person lives 2 time zones away. The rise of remote work leaves workers isolated AND unconnected to their colleagues. For the young ones, there is no mentoring.
Remote work and outdated IT skills isn't a good mix. It's easily exploitable.

It's a remote job but the CEO ' s kids attend your daughter:s school? So the ceo's family is local? Is there a physical office at all? Have you seen it?

Also, the bolded is what 8 pages worth of pp's have been telling you.

[Anonymous]

Nothing about this internship sounds quite right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, she is actually being paid, minimum wage, $15/hour.
"School mom" is an alum of her high school. This mother wants to help out the kids. Her own children are the same ages and attend these schools too. The kids all know each other.

She was VERY defensive when she called me. I had to point out to her that the HR and IT people didn't even notify her of this issue. She only heard about it from me last night way after it was all over. Why wasn't she notified? She quieted down when I pointed out that her company may have security breaches if her IT people can't be bothered to do basic filtering of incoming emails. I wasn't hearing any talk about reimbursement so I don't think it will happen.
She didn't realize one could access Outlook emails online.
It's not a big company, maybe 15 people max. Having worked in companies large and small, I'm pretty sure the IT person at a company this size phones it in. The HR person lives 2 time zones away. The rise of remote work leaves workers isolated AND unconnected to their colleagues. For the young ones, there is no mentoring.
Remote work and outdated IT skills isn't a good mix. It's easily exploitable.

There are number of possibilities here that could be investigated if you report the loss to the police, which you should do.

The first and most likely is that the Mom CEO is a crook. Most cons occur locally with affinity as a feature.

The next is that IT person or HR people aren’t properly vetted and are crooks.

Third is this purely bad luck and a coincidence. But this seems to me the most remote possible because Occam’s Razor.

I’m struggling to understand how a 15-person firm that does “research” and has “summer internships” that START in mid-August are legit.

What does the job description entail? What is the “research” on?

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry this happened to your daughter, OP. I'm also sorry a lot of people here are being jerks.

I hate to say it, but I don't see how the company is responsible. I sometimes get non-work emails at my work account at my university. Moreover, I have to deal with emails from outside the organization all the time. It kind of sounds like you were expecting the company to filter/read or block all incoming emails from outside the organization, but I just don't see how it is possible or practical. We've all received emails before from gmail accounts supposedly belonging to my department chair. Nobody has ever taken the bait because we are all adults, but I'm guessing these emails are attempting the same scam.

This is an awful thing to happen, but I doubt it will ever happen to her again, now that she has experienced it. Her spidey sense will forever be on high alert. Give her lots of hugs and encourage her to move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, she is actually being paid, minimum wage, $15/hour.
"School mom" is an alum of her high school. This mother wants to help out the kids. Her own children are the same ages and attend these schools too. The kids all know each other.

She was VERY defensive when she called me. I had to point out to her that the HR and IT people didn't even notify her of this issue. She only heard about it from me last night way after it was all over. Why wasn't she notified? She quieted down when I pointed out that her company may have security breaches if her IT people can't be bothered to do basic filtering of incoming emails. I wasn't hearing any talk about reimbursement so I don't think it will happen.
She didn't realize one could access Outlook emails online.
It's not a big company, maybe 15 people max. Having worked in companies large and small, I'm pretty sure the IT person at a company this size phones it in. The HR person lives 2 time zones away. The rise of remote work leaves workers isolated AND unconnected to their colleagues. For the young ones, there is no mentoring.
Remote work and outdated IT skills isn't a good mix. It's easily exploitable.

What does this mean?? Phishing emails can come from anywhere. It has nothing to with which version of outlook you’re using.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, she is actually being paid, minimum wage, $15/hour.
"School mom" is an alum of her high school. This mother wants to help out the kids. Her own children are the same ages and attend these schools too. The kids all know each other.

She was VERY defensive when she called me. I had to point out to her that the HR and IT people didn't even notify her of this issue. She only heard about it from me last night way after it was all over. Why wasn't she notified? She quieted down when I pointed out that her company may have security breaches if her IT people can't be bothered to do basic filtering of incoming emails. I wasn't hearing any talk about reimbursement so I don't think it will happen.
She didn't realize one could access Outlook emails online.
It's not a big company, maybe 15 people max. Having worked in companies large and small, I'm pretty sure the IT person at a company this size phones it in. The HR person lives 2 time zones away. The rise of remote work leaves workers isolated AND unconnected to their colleagues. For the young ones, there is no mentoring.
Remote work and outdated IT skills isn't a good mix. It's easily exploitable.

What does this mean?? Phishing emails can come from anywhere. It has nothing to with which version of outlook you’re using.

Seriously. OP, you are focused on the wrong stuff here.

A company instructing an employee to use a particular kind of software is not a red flag. A company instructing an employee to do this on their own tech is fairly cheap, but there may be reasons for it that make sense (e.g., a summer intern being paid $15/hour for remote research should not receive a free company laptop). This could not have been prevented by your daughter using a company laptop or webmail.

I myself recently received a text message from an unknown number impersonating my boss, asking me to go buy Amazon gift cards. There were a couple red flags about the communication, right out of the gate, including the scammer using a name my boss would never use ("Ann" instead of "Ann Marie") and the industry reality that it's unethical for us to give our clients gift cards for pretty much any reason. I reported the episode to the FTC, which will do nothing because by the time I alerted the scammer that I was onto them, they were already gone and onto the next target.

I understand that your daughter is young and that it's intimidating to receive communications from higher ups that feel stressful, but your role as her mom is to help her understand that "This is my first week, I will need to talk to my supervisor about that" is a perfectly acceptable answer to weird requests.

Consider reporting here: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/avoiding-and-reporting-gift-card-scams

[Anonymous]

Hi OP, thank you for posting what happened to your daughter. This can happen to anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would bet anything this kid has yet to receive a single paycheck or paystub and OP can’t see or admit the entire job is a scam

Well according to the OP, Friday was her first day of work. She had a “summer internship” that started on Aug 10.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, she is actually being paid, minimum wage, $15/hour.
"School mom" is an alum of her high school. This mother wants to help out the kids. Her own children are the same ages and attend these schools too. The kids all know each other.

She was VERY defensive when she called me. I had to point out to her that the HR and IT people didn't even notify her of this issue. She only heard about it from me last night way after it was all over. Why wasn't she notified? She quieted down when I pointed out that her company may have security breaches if her IT people can't be bothered to do basic filtering of incoming emails. I wasn't hearing any talk about reimbursement so I don't think it will happen.
She didn't realize one could access Outlook emails online.
It's not a big company, maybe 15 people max. Having worked in companies large and small, I'm pretty sure the IT person at a company this size phones it in. The HR person lives 2 time zones away. The rise of remote work leaves workers isolated AND unconnected to their colleagues. For the young ones, there is no mentoring.
Remote work and outdated IT skills isn't a good mix. It's easily exploitable.

What does this mean?? Phishing emails can come from anywhere. It has nothing to with which version of outlook you’re using.

Turns out young people who like to brag about not using email because it's for old people, don't really know how email even works.