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A New Internet ScamBy Jim Frazier Last week, I got an email message. It held the promise of a sale, and I breathlessly called the sender as they asked. To say I was disappointed is to be too polite. I was darned ticked and conveyed that particular emotion to the individual who had sent me this message. If this happened to me, it's probably happening to you as well. And you don't even know it. Allow me to educate you. The message was as follows: "Hello. We have a 60 node network that is desperately in need of work. Would you call me to discuss helping us out?" This is the kind of email message I drool over. This man needs my help! After putting on my Superman cape (which I always do when making phone calls to prospective customers) I placed the call. The area code was New York. It was a little far, but I figured they might have read my words of wisdom, success stories, testimonials, or heard me speak, and would pay any amount (even first class?) to have me come and guide them on their journey. After I dialed, and the phone was ringing, I took another look at this golden email message, particularly the return address. Hmmmm. It came from a company called joeblowrecruiting.com. Alarm lights started flashing in the corners of my eyes. "But," I encouraged myself, "recruiters have technology too." "Joe Blow Recruiting, may I help you." "Yes, my name is Jim Frazier from The Gadwall Group. You sent me an email inquiring about our helping you with some networking problems you're having." "Oh, yes, Mr. Frazier. I was wondering if you were looking for a new opportunity. We have a couple of things in our files for the Chicago area and..." "Whoa. Let me just stop you right there. Is it fair to say that you're a recruiter and you DON'T have a network problem?" "Yes sir, we're a recruiter." "And you sent me that email to get me to call...that's it?" "Yes sir." "You lied, in other words." "Yes sir. That's what we have to do to find people." "Well, buckaroo. That really fries my shorts. Not only do you lie to me, but you also make me pick up the tab for the long distance call. And I even put on my cape. The least you can do is provide an 800 number." "Uh. Cape?" At that point I hung up. I then re-read the message. Obviously the joeblowrecruiting.com was a tip off. But the other thing, the point of this article, was that this mope had sent the message to our generic email address of info@gadwall.com Most companies don't make recruiter's jobs easier by providing employee contact names, extension numbers, or email addresses on their Web site. But the question is, if you're providing generic addresses, like "webmaster@gadwall.com", "sales@gadwall.com", "support@gadwall.com" or "hr@gadwall.com", where are those messages going? In many cases, they're going into a forgotten bit-bucket someplace never to be seen again. But in other organizations, they're being read by the Webmaster, a sales rep, a tech support person, or someone in human resources. So all I have to do, as a recruiter, is send a message like the one I've illustrated and trick the employee into calling me. Naturally most of them will be upset at being bamboozled. But once in a while, one WILL be looking. Maybe her boss yelled at her that day. Or she just talked to a college roommate who is making a LOT more money than she is. If a recruiter manages to snag one or two people out of a hundred emails that he sends to "info@.....com" he'll be making a fortune. And you may not have known that you're even getting these messages. But now you do. Frankly, I don't know if this is a new trick, or one that's been around for a while. I do know that it's the first time it's happened to me. And as dastardly, mean, nasty scams go, it's pretty dang good. I really must applaud (and disdain) the first recruiter who tried it. I plan to react violently if I ever meet him, but I will respect his creativity, warped as it is to evil purposes. So what do YOU do? It's really very simple. Set up all of those generic email addresses so that they forward to one person, who you trust and doubt would be susceptible to the lures of the recruiter. Maybe it's your sales manager or maybe it's the owner of the company. At The Gadwall Group, that would be yours truly. So I get all those messages to info@gadwall.com along with my regular mail. But now that I've been tricked once by that nefarious recruiter, I'll try to be calm when future sales inquiries come in. And the cape probably is a bit much.
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