Messing with Job Scammers (the thread formerly known as "Question for anybody over at Riot Games")
polycounter lvl 13
EDIT: This thread is now a chronology of me messing with people who try to run these job scams.
I normally wouldn't shotgun this out on a forum like this except there's a time element. Short version: I got an unexpected (didn't send an app) interview offer sent from riotremotejobs@gmail.com (not complaining, mind you!), which pointed me to follow up via a Telegram conversation, which got me hustled into a scheduled interview-by-text tomorrow. There's a couple things that seem a little out of place about the whole thing so far (I can provide details privately), but I can't figure out what they'd be getting from me if it was some sort of scam, so I figured I should double check that 2020 hasn't just broken my skepto-meter.
Feel free to PM me if you're more comfortable.
Replies
If you want to double check, reach out to a Riot Recruiter on LinkedIn.
Oh man, they got out past the end of their skis reaaaal quick, and I was mostly BSing since I haven't done any character rigging since art school...
"PLEASE WE HAVE TO STOP THE INTERVIEW", lolz. They didn't even get to a part where they tried to ask me for money or personal info before they had to ninja smoke pellet their way out. Buncha shmucks.
Should I show up tomorrow and see if they want to keep going?
cant wait to see how this plays out haha.
Today I strung them along the whole day "missing them" by just 20-30 minutes every time they asked if I was ready to continue, mostly because they pinged me at 5am my time and I went "oh helllllll no". They're STILL trying to engage me, though.
If I had to guess, they're not actually scamming about the job - they're going to try and charge for "exclusive training" or something. That's when I'll fire the low orbit ion cannon.
<CUE MUSIC>
Look, I'm not getting up at 5am to mess with a scammer. 8am, sure. Not 5am. This isn't 'Nam. There are rules. But, I finally reeled him back in:
When in doubt, pretend you took Latin in high school. Ignore the fact that this question is wildly out of place for a 3D artist interview. But mostly pretend you took Latin. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Now... we crank it up.
No, my dad never fought in the jungle. I have had dreams of flying, it comes with shipping multiple flight sims. I have never touched the Quake editor. Does any of this matter? No it does not. The show must go on. Facts are irrelevant. Especially to Derrick, who find this all perfectly believable and acceptable.
Facts? Where we're going, we don't need facts.
This is still 2001 and kinetix still makes 3dstudio, Paint Shop Pro is as good as Photoshop, Poser3D is useful for more than desperate patreon spongers churning out 3D pr0n, and Foxpro isn't a programming language that nobody cares about. Why is there a radiotelescope array mentioned in that conversation? Because I can, that's why. ONWARD.
My listening skills are so good. Let me tell you about my listening skills. At one point I listened in four languages. One of them was Tolkienien Elvish. I listened so hard that the game shipped with a perfect score (a zero, by the way, but hey, he didn't ask, did he?). I listened so perfectly and flawlessly, when I mentioned it again, Derrick didn't even bat an eye. In fact, Derrick, firstborn of Shmuck, bearer of the word "wut", could only reply with this:
That was the original plan, but he pulled the eject handle real quick when I didn't have a bank account ready to give him that instant.
I thought about giving him an old, closed one I have somewhere, but on the off chance he actually managed to do something problematic with it, I didn't want the hassle of untangling that mess. And, the people at my credit union don't deserve that. I know them, they're nice folks, it's a small community. So he really needs to improve his scam banking practices and get with the blockchain.
I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster my name isn't nearly that pretentious but it is absolutely that Irish.
"No, I think I see what he's doing here, John, he's establishing a sense of extreme urgency and putting the attacker on their back foot by trying to pressure them more than they're pressuring him."
"Well, as they say in that gif on the internet, 'a bold move, Cotton, let's see how it works out for him.' "
"You're right, John, I don't think he'll try to hit them that hard with a reverse pressure power move right at the start again, that nearly blew up in his face. His opponent probably didn't even see the totally legitimate part about remembering 16bpp color depth games. Does anybody even do that anymore?"
"It's all handled in drivers, Bob. Everything's in drivers."
"Ah, the days."
"Put down the copy of Unreal Gold, Bob."
"I agree John, the risks he's taking are just stupid. Who actually responds to anything like this, even on the internet?"
"OP, obviously, Bob."
"That may be so, be he's also crazy."
"We'll leave that to the viewers at home to decide."
"No, I just took a straw poll here in the booth, we're pretty sure he's crazy."
"With this OP, Bob, it's impossible to say. He's already shown that he lives a bizarre, sometimes surreal, almost incomprehensible day to day existence. I mean, my God, in the last one of these he busted out a picture of a dog sled on his own front porch! But actual physical violence? I don't know - I'm gonna have to go with 'probably false', but I'm not putting any money down on it."
"...and, yep, we're getting notice from the refs down in the thread that it was, indeed, totally BS. He has never deliberately injured somebody in his life."
"Well, let's see if he has this scammer fooled..."
"OH MY GOD, DID YOU SEE THAT?!"
"HE JUST WENT FOR THE KILLSHOT, JOHN! HE LINKED THE SCAMMER DIRECTLY TO THIS THREAD!"
"I can't believe it, that's NUTS this early in the duel! What is he thinking? Obviously this is it, the scammer's going to bail right here."
"He... must not have felt it! He didn't click the link, maybe?"
"That has to be, John, it's the only explanation that makes sense! Wait, it looks like OP is winding up again for another coup de grace!"
"THERE IT IS, BOB! STRAIGHT TO THE SCAMMER PLEXUS!"
"Oh no, is that blood down there, Bob?!"
[...so Scammer here actually wiped the chat log before I could grab the last few responses. But here's the real zinger: he doubled down.]
Scammer: Well this isn't Riot. This is real and legit
"Oh god, John, we can't broadcast this. Folks at home, look away until the medics get onto the field."
"HE'S DOWN."
"That's it, Bob. That's the end. They're taking the body away and cleaning up the message log. I hope we never see this again."
"To hell with that John, we'll be here next week with another matchup on MONDAY NIGHT SCAMMER STOMP! Until next time, everybody, good night!"
Duuuude you gotta try and beat my high score now.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...
...for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
(This one is probably going to be short and sweet; we had a death in the family recently and I don't have the time to really string this shmuck along like the others, but it's good stress relief so he's getting dunked and dumped).