Recruitment agencies impersonating in-house recruiters

[tinopener]

Hi chaps, long time lurker here so sorry about the heavy first post

I was duped into giving references up front by in-house recruiter for an international bank who I now realise was an agency phishing.

I'm normally really careful about these tricks, and this was the first time in years I've been caught out. This also makes me suspect it was a concerted effort by a particular agency to catch me out. We all know the ones that would try this.

Anyway, in the first instance, be wary of these calls coming from withheld numbers, and insist you get their details instead so you can call them back.

For anyone who does get caught out, I personally see this as getting sensitive information by deception i.e. fraud, so I reported it to the Police at actionfraud.police.uk. If you do the same, make sure you report *everything* you can, especially the time of the phone call and who your phone provider is. The police are unlikely to act on a single act of phishing, but if they get a few of the same pattern then they might trace the phone calls.

If the same thing has indeed happened to anyone recently, please feel free to PM me.

[SussexSeagull]

Are you being serious about calling the Police?

[tinopener]

I did call the police and they told me to make a report to actionfraud, which I did.

I got a report number, but they told me that it was unlikely the police would do anything unless it was happening a lot.

All the same, if an agency is hoping to make financial gain by deceiving contractors - and wasting their valuable job finding time - then that is crossing the line.

[Underscore Pt2]

A lot of agencies are now working as in-house recruiters. The whole service is being outsourced to agencies to run as an internal team.

[northernladuk]

You know why they won't do anything about it? Possibly because they get so many ******* morons reporting rubbish just because they have been had over a barrel they just can't get round to dealing with real stuff.

[tractor]

.....

Interesting point... and yet just the other day they spent 100M chasing people who "hacked" voice mails. Which by the way was something I was well aware of in the 90's as it was common practice for agents to do the same.

If everyone just bends over and let's these fraudsters carry on then it will never get sorted.

I say bravo to the OP and good luck.

What happened when you reported it?

[northernladuk]

Well if action fraud won't help maybe this will

[TheFaQQer]

Interesting point... and yet just the other day they spent 100M chasing people who "hacked" voice mails.

No they didn't.

Rupert Murdoch spent £60million in defence of all bar one defendant. Legal Aid paid £0.25million for one defendant and the prosecution team spent £1.7million to find six people guilty.

[psychocandy]

Are agents really lying, cheating scumbags then? Really?

OP - No scandal here. If the police actioned something every time an agent acted like a scumbag like this then they'd all be in prison.

[northernladuk]

Are agents really lying, cheating scumbags then? Really?

OP - No scandal here. If the police actioned something every time an agent acted like a scumbag like this then they'd all be in prison.

Except that being a scumbag isn't breaking the law so they wouldn't.