December 7th

ADVENTURES IN JOB HUNTING

A job posting showed up at Yahoo Hot Jobs in my field, so I sent in my resume. I should have remembered that every other job I've found at YHJ has been a scam, but I didn't. A week or so later I got a call from a man who told me that the jobs all required a credit score of 620 or above, and would I qualify. Sure! So, he scheduled a phone interview for last Thursday at noon.

Noon came, noon went, no phone call. Finally at 12:30 a woman called, (who sounded like she wasn't very smart) said that they were running late and could she call in 45 minutes. No problem. FOUR HOURS LATER she finally called back and we had a little chat. She said that the reason they needed to verify credit was that they were offering salaries of $200,000 (for a loan processor? $50,000 is more in line with reality!). She kept rambling on about how they were going to be approved to be a bank in all 50 states, how they were buying distressed properties to boost the assets, and a bunch of other irrelevant nonsense. Nothing about the job, about when it would start, just a lot of useless blather, IMO. Then she said that wanted to fly me to Las Vegas for "training". Uh, what? You want to bring me in for training without an interview? Backtrack. It's for an interview and to give me more information about the company. She said she would call Friday morning to set something up.

Again, morning came and went. She finally called at 5:30 and left a message that she wanted to schedule me to come to Las Vegas on Tuesday, and she would call "tomorrow morning" to set it up.

I didn't answer the phone on Friday, because in the meantime I had tried to find some information on this company and I wasn't ready to talk with her. A google search couldn't find a current website. The only internet presence was a gazillion ads posted looking for loan officers all over the country (including the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico). There was ONE yellow pages type listing for this company in Las Vegas. So, I looked further. The phone number of the guy who called at first is the business number for an answering service in Tacoma WA. The number the woman called me from is an unlisted land line in Los Angeles. The address and suite number shown for the company is the same as the address and suite number for PAGES of other companies. The phone number shows as belonging to a janitorial company. The company is not licensed as a mortgage lender in Nevada. There is a company with that name that was terminated as an FHA approved lender, but I don't know if that's the same company or not.

To continue the same pattern of not doing what she said she would, the woman didn't call Saturday. She finally called this morning-which is Monday. I started asking questions. She did give me an internet site (which has very little actual content, basically the company name and a couple of addresses), but she ignored my questions about why they were calling me from different locations. She claimed that their Nevada license is under a different name, but didn't give it to me. I then told her I wasn't feeling comfortable and would not be giving her any personal information. This is when she completely lost it and began screaming. "I haven't asked you for any personal information!" "You keep stressing that you need to check my credit, how would you do that then?" Silence. Then more screaming. I was "slandering" the company name, let me give you more information..." She just kept yelling and wouldn't shut up. I finally managed to yell over her that I was done, and good-bye. "You can't be done, you're slandering us. You need to listen to me."

I would think that if this WAS a legitimate company and a not some sort of scam she would have been a bit more reasonable. My experience with scammers is when you start to question them they react with indignation, as if they are going to change your mind with anger and threats. I finally hung up on her. She called back and resumed screaming. I hung up again. She called again but this time I let the machine answer. She left the name of "her" lawyer. "Hers", not the company's? That's odd. She told me to call them, that they held the license. So, I checked. Nothing under that name either. (Although a google search revealed that this is a huge firm, that doesn't have a stellar reuptation.)

I don't think I would want to accept employment with someone who screams at people, or who never once followed through with a phone call when she said she would, even if the company is legitimate. I don't think they are though, I think that it's two scammers looking to steal some identities.