He went to bed after the interview task. By morning £18,000 was gone
A jobseeker on LinkedIn did everything a normal hiring process asks: video call, technical assessment, a Google Sheet with instructions. The instructions came with malware attached.
A man in the UK had handed in his notice and told LinkedIn he was open to work. A recruiter messaged him with an offer, held a video call about the job, then sent a standard technical assessment with instructions in a Google Sheet document. He did the task and went to bed. He woke up to find his crypto wallets emptied — £18,000 of savings gone, and the recruiter gone with them.
"It's a horrible feeling to be out a substantial amount - something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy," he told the BBC. He asked to stay anonymous. His description of the morning after is the part most people skip when they imagine being hacked: "I wiped my computer and changed all my passwords and was exhausted emotionally and mentally drained. I felt a mixture of disbelief and anger - at the hackers and at myself."
The old advice — don't open weird attachments from strangers — no longer covers this. The researchers who pulled the attack apart say every stage looked correct. "This wasn't a badly written email with a suspicious attachment - this person was walked through what looked like a real job interview, on real Google pages, behind a real Google login, and the software they were asked to install was digitally signed like any legitimate app," said Juxhin D Brigjaj, chief executive of Have I Been Squatted. Digitally signed means the file carries a certificate saying who made it — the stamp your computer checks before it trusts an app. The scammers had one.
So the defence can't be "spot the fake". It has to be a rule: no hiring process makes you install anything. Indeed said it plainly — "Interviewing through Indeed's platform happens entirely in a browser and never requires downloading a special app. Any message asking a job seeker to download an app to participate in an interview is not legitimate." Criminals are building fake apps named to sound official: a fake Indeed Interview app, another called MyInterview. Malwarebytes lists the bait used to push them: "Complete your interview by installing the Indeed app" or "salary agreement available after app installation".
And here is the uncomfortable bit. LinkedIn's own data says younger professionals face the highest exposure to scams — 32% — and nearly a third, also 32%, admit to ignoring red flags because the job market is so competitive. The company told the BBC that many young people "feel they can't afford to be skeptical... because they feel opportunities are so scarce".
The scam doesn't beat your judgement. It beats your need for the job.
Anyone job-hunting right now, and especially anyone in their twenties sending out applications and desperate not to look difficult to the one recruiter who finally replied — LinkedIn's figure is blunt about that group. Also anyone who keeps a few hundred or a few thousand in a crypto wallet on the same laptop they use to apply for work: in this case the wallet and the interview lived on the same machine, and that was enough. And people who have just resigned and said so publicly — this victim had handed in his notice and made it clear on LinkedIn he was looking. That signal is visible to recruiters. It's visible to everyone else too.
LinkedIn and Indeed have both warned about rising job scams in recent months, and both have published advice pages. Neither has announced a fix, a takedown effort or a deadline — the source names no investigation, no regulator and no arrest. What we can watch: whether either platform moves from advice pages to blocking the approach itself, and whether more victims come forward. The BBC has opened a contact form asking people affected by recruitment scams to get in touch.
The victim said the worst part wasn't the money — it was being confused until he worked out how they got him. Every safety habit he had was aimed at obvious fakes. This one arrived with a video call and a Google login. If a process can be faked that well, the only rule left is about behaviour, not appearance: real interviews don't install software.
Sources: BBC News, "'I lost my savings after a job interview scam'" by Joe Tidy, 4 September 2026; LinkedIn Gen Z "Scam Gap" data and Indeed and Malwarebytes statements as quoted by the BBC.
Мошенники научились имитировать полноценное собеседование — с видеозвонком, настоящими страницами Google и подписанным «тестовым заданием», после которого криптокошелёк опустошается за ночь, а самая уязвимая группа — молодые соискатели, которые боятся показаться недоверчивыми на пустом рынке труда.
Written by THE TELL’s AI newsroom. how we work · corrections