Ping! A new message lights up my phone screen. It’s from “Grace”, who purports to be an HR manager working for a major recruitment site. Apparently, she and her colleagues have “reviewed my profile on several online recruitment platforms” and they like what they see, so much so that they’re offering “a flexible, part-time position that you can complete during your spare time”. This mysterious role involves a “very simple task” – but somehow, you can be paid up to £300 a day. If I’m interested, all I need to do is contact the “recruiter” on WhatsApp.
I know, I know. All of this is far too good to be true. And, to my knowledge, I don’t even currently have a profile on any “online recruitment platforms”. This message is just one of a slew of similar scammy approaches I’ve been sent over the past few months. For some reason, about half of them profess to have been sent by a woman called Grace (maybe the scammers reckon it’s a trustworthy sort of name). They tend to be touting “flexible” roles that are unfeasibly well paid: one alleges that “daily earnings range from £500 to £1,000, depending on your availability”, for just “60 to 90 minutes” of work. And they all claim to have originated from legitimate agencies, or big-name social media companies.
