Okay, I’ve been sporadically applying for 9-5 jobs for a bit, because this whole “self-employed” business is more of an effective weight-loss program than someone of my already diminutive corporality can safely undertake.
Early on, I learned to spot the keywords that mark a particularly lowlife scam – preying on jobseekers for free labour.
NEW COMPANY – HIRING ALL POSITIONS! JOBS JOBS JOBS!!
It reads like spam, but you get newsprint on your fingers, too. It’s great.
I schlepped out for one of these manky things a while back and found myself with 20 other schmucks who’d come in anticipation of the possibility of honest work, to find that these peope were soliciting for people to walk around downtown with a hockey bag of third-world novelty & gift items as part of a sales “training program.” :dubious: Of course, the ads never come out of the paper – why pay someone to hawk your shabby wares when all you have to do is get a couple of dozen hungry suckers in one place in order to find the one or two who are stupid enough to demean themselves and wear out their shoes without even the minor mitigation that comes of receiving mininum wage?
This week, however, I called a number that appeared to be for legit warehouse job, based on the print ad. The person who answered the phone asked “which job” I was looking for, and then rattled off a huge list of openings for jobs of all descriptions – warehousing, reception, customer service, sales, shipping, you name it, they needed someone to do it.
This triggered my skeptical response, and, as politely as I could manage, I asked for comfirmation that there really was a warehouse job available, and that I wasn’t going to get there and find that it’s just a fly-by-night sales scheme or MLM operation.
I was unequivocably reassured that the opening was on the level. “This is a new location for us. We need an experienced shipper/receiver! Bring your resume on in!”
So I take the address and immediately recognize it as the place I schlepped out to last year – although the assurances I received in answer to my direct questioning left me ambivalent enough to go back to my notes to be sure.
First: What can they possibly hope to gain by bluffing through skeptical questioning. Do they think that someone who goes out of their way to ask if this is just a Bait & Switch scam is going to get out there and just shrug, and say “Well, since I’m here anyway, maybe I will try to sell a couple duffle-bags full of sparkle-bunnies and polyester socks for these people in the faint hope that they’ll be impressed enough by my abilities to actually pay me mininum wage to do it full time instead of relying on a heavy rotation of desperate job-seekers to move them, like they’ve been doing for years. Of course I’m anxious to place my trust in someone who resorted to a bald-faced, smiling-in-the-teeth lie in order to get me here.”
Second: What, if anything, can be done to these people?
If I didn’t recognize the address, it would have cost me between ten and fifteen dollars for a wasted excursion – without considering the cost of my time and the possibility of missing a real opportunity because I’m chasing down a wild goose.
That may not seem like much, but my sometimes lower-than-welfare income generally allows me to apply for three or four jobs in person per month before sacrificing things like food. Wasting time and money on dealing with meatspace spammers is simply not in the budget – and I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the other victims of these types of scammers are in much the same position.
What I’d really like to do is to file a criminal complaint, but I suspect that since these people have been operating the same scam for at least a year in the same location, they may be operating just within the limitations of the law. It sure feels like fraud to me, though.
The only other course I see is finding a public-spirited lawyer who’d be willing to take on a class-action suit, which seems a little bit farfetched.
What exactly can be done, short of arson, car-bombs, and public pantsing?