CLEVELAND — Criminals are targeting our area with fake job postings. In fact, a big warning came out recently from the Better Business Bureau. Now, a new heads-up about a combination scheme that used a fake job to reel in a local woman who lost big-time money.
“They are targeting everybody and anybody,” said Tiffany James.
She said she responded to an online work-from-home ad this summer. Her family had fallen on hard times.
“I wanted to make sure that my family was taken care of,” she said.
THE SET-UP
The supposed employee said she would be working for a company called DistroKid. It’s a legitimate business that helps musicians, and before accepting the job, James researched it.
“And I happen to stumble upon the real company, and so I’m reading and I’m like oh, OK. This is cool,” James told us.
The job was fake. We asked DistroKid multiple times if it knew people were impersonating it. It replied with “...if interested, we’ll reach back out via email….”
After James had worked for the impostors for about a month, they told her she was eligible for an employee appreciation lottery. She thought she had won a bunch of money. “I’m like oh, wow! Yes! Like, thank God!” she told us.
“It’s $45,000?” we asked.
“Plus some,” she added.
THE TAKEDOWN
However, she said she was then told she had to test a money transfer to Cash App. At first it was 200 bucks, then $10,000, and then more.
She told us the criminals’ directions were confusing, and she got a weird vibe, so she asked for her money back. She said she lost about $30,000.
“It happens to people you know, people you work with, people you’re in contact with,” said James. “You never think that you would be that next person, but they have gotten clever.”
THE RED FLAGS
“It’s a ripe time for scammers,” said Sheryl Harris, who is the director of the Cuyahoga County Department of Consumer Affairs. “Any time you are being asked to send your own money to an employer, that should be a huge red flag.”
She said to watch out for strange directions.
“‘Do this, do this, do this’ and they give you instructions that you can’t possibly follow because they are not real,” said Harris.
She warned to be careful when they ask you to try a financial transfer.
“People are being told they have to test things. They have to test Cash App. They have to test a Bitcoin ATM,” Harris said.
She told us there are many more scams these days that use the long game, drawing things out to gain the victim's trust.
“We’re seeing that with all scams, by the way,” said Harris. “A longer time that people are being kind of strung along before they even make the ask that’s a scam ask.”
She also told us you should report fraud to the county’s Scam Squad.
James said she talked with the FBI, and her bank is looking into her lost money.
She’s now worried about losing the home that she just got, and she wanted to warn you to be careful.
"I put my family in jeopardy, believing that I was actually helping," James told us.
