Several users have been contacted by scammers using the identify of real Waymo employees. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Several users of Adobe’s art-themed social media platform Behance have encountered an elaborate scam in recent weeks involving fraudulent job offerings from people claiming to be recruiters at autonomous driving tech company Waymo.
Detailed information about how the job scam is being operated was published by u/Impressive-Fox-6719 on the Behance subreddit, warning other Behance users to be wary of fake Waymo recruiters offering high-paying design roles. According to the post, the scam is a common fraud scheme that involves sending users a fake job confirmation following an “interview” on Skype and a check to begin purchasing office equipment. After confirming the deposit to the scammers, the target is directed to send money to another person via Zelle.
“They have prepared a very convincing Waymo branded 10-page PDF packet that appears legitimate,” said u/Impressive-Fox-6719. “They will require some forms of identification and even request you fill out a tax form, including your social security number.”
The fraudulent Waymo recruiters are masquerading as real employees at the company, with at least one genuine Waymo recruiter on LinkedIn noting that she’s being impersonated. Not every genuine Waymo employee being impersonated has left such a warning, however, which can make verifying the fake job offers tricky. Other Behance users have also commented on the subreddit post to confirm they’ve encountered similar scams using the guise of other companies like social game developer Zynga. Both Adobe and Waymo are aware of the issue and encourage Behance users to remain vigilant regarding any job offers being made.
“Waymo has language on our website, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor informing candidates that interviews are conducted either in person or over video conferencing and never over email, Telegram, or other platforms,” said Waymo spokesperson Katherine Barna to The Verge. “We also work with cybercrime experts and alert anti-fraud departments for career sites when we learn about scam accounts, with a goal of getting them removed as quickly as possible.”
Adobe echoed a similar sentiment in its own statement. “Behance has a number of measures in place to prevent spam and phishing attempts on Behance and routinely flags accounts that violate our terms. Additionally, our users have the ability to report scam messaging directly from their Behance inbox,” said Adobe VP Matthew Smith in a statement to The Verge. “We’ve informed customers that if someone is asking to communicate off-platform, especially in another social media site, it may be a scam.”
These scam job offerings are hardly unique. Behance (which was purchased by Adobe back in 2012) is essentially a LinkedIn for creative folks. It’s a platform designed to help artists show off their work via online portfolios, which makes it an ideal place for recruitment. As such, you should apply all the usual cautions that you would on similar recruitment platforms — don’t open suspicious links, verify the identify of the recruiter, etc. Behance has a dedicated guide on how users can protect themselves from job scams on the platform for those that need additional information.
Update, August 24th, 1:20PM ET: The article headline has been changed to clarify that Behance users are being contacted off platform.
