I've been job hunting lately and I recently submitted an application for a data entry position on a popular job postings website. It would have been for a bank in my area and I would have been employed through a staffing agency.

I got a text early this morning from a recruiter claiming to be from the staffing agency, asking me for my email address so he could send me information about this job and so I could send him my resume. Kind of annoying because my full resume and email address should already be on the application I sent through the job posting website, but not really a red flag for a scam. More just an annoying part of the job application process.

I gave him my email address and he gives me the same job description as on the website, and asks for my resume and my pay expectations. He also asked for my phone number so we can call which is a little odd because he was just texting me, but not that remarkable.

I should mention at this point that his phrasing is a little odd and his spelling and grammar were awful in both text and email - he consistently phrased "(wages) per hour" as "(wages) on W2" and his writing was so genuinely incomprehensible through both text message and email that I had to ask for clarification multiple times. This should have been red flag #1 but I chalked it up to being that his workplace is understaffed and his boss was desperate enough to have someone with awful written communication skills work as a recruiter.

After I sent him my resume and wage expectations, he immediately texts me asking if he can call within the next 20 minutes. I tell him yes, that's fine, so he calls and we have an extremely bizarre conversation.

Before anyone asks this guy's spoken English was perfect and he didn't have a detectably non-American accent, though some of his phrasing was strange. He went right out the gate by saying my hourly wages would start at $2 higher than both what was listed as starting wages on the job posting and what my salary requirements are. Then he says "(name), before we continue I need you to guarantee that you are 100% committed to this job." Red flag #2. Really, really strange thing to ask someone who has not had an interview yet. I told him I would see how I feel when I've had an interview.

Like as over text communications his phrasing was extremely strange in some areas. For instance I asked about health insurance benefits, as this is the primary reason I'm looking for a new job at the moment. He responds with "There's no benefits offered but you can buy it from us". This is what first caused alarm bells to ring for me. Confused, I said "So would this be an employer sponsored group plan?". He responds: "We don't offer health insurance benefits but you can get them after 60 days". There were several questions I asked where he effectively answered "no, but yes".

This was especially interesting to me. He asked if I was authorized to work in the US, I said I'm a US citizen. He asked if I had a Visa "or anything like that", I said no, I was born in the US. He responded with "are you absolutely sure?"... is there a possibility I could have been mistaken?

He also said I needed to send the staffing agency my High School transcripts, I asked if this was necessary and if my diploma would suffice. He responded "you can send transcripts or a copy" several times when I pushed him before finally saying a scan of my diploma "or whatever" would be fine. Not sure if this was a red flag but it was extremely weird.

Before ending the call he once again emphasized that I need to "100% guarantee that I am committed to this job". At this point I just said "I am interested in this position" not fully meaning it at this point. Then he asked me for my Social Security number!!! I asked him "wait, over the phone?" He responded "or through email, whichever makes you most comfortable." So of course I told him I was not comfortable giving a recruiter my Social Security at all, and he thanked me for my time, that he would let me know when I can come in for an interview, and hung up on me.

Even after all this I still thought this may have been a real job... I thought that this was possibly just an undertrained, pushy recruiter for a company that's desperate and poorly managed. When my roommate came home, after a whole day of speculating about this with him over text, I read the emails and text messages out loud and, well, the staffing agencies he claimed to work for were real but completely different, as in through text he said he worked for ABC staffing and through email he said he worked for XYZ staffing. His email still looks legit which concerns me, it's just something like recruiter.lastname(at)abcstaffing.com. This should have been the red flag that stopped me in my tracks before he called me.

After I realized this was a scam it kind of shook me up. During the call I asked the address of where I would be working and it matched up to a real office building, if I had not been already educated on the dangers of giving my SSN to people this early in a job hiring process I could have very well fallen for it, especially because I thought it still might be legit after he asked me for it. Most scams that have been attempted on me have been calling about my car's extended warranty and Nigerian princes and the like so I've never encountered something this elaborate before. Though honestly, even if this weren't a scam, this experience would be a giant flashing alarm to tell me to stay far away from a company that hires a recruiter that's this simultaneously pushy and incompetent.

I'm thinking about calling up both the staffing agencies and the company that contracted with them tomorrow to see if this is a problem they know about.