I have recieved this very call before, I also have had people calling to verify employment for several people who supposedly worked here…but never did.
Oh yeah. I operate with a little paranoia. It’s part of the job. If someone in the field calls with a request (order some equipment, reset a password) I ask them to send me an email with the details of what they need. That way I know it’s them (or at least it’s less likely to be a scammer) and I have a record of the request.
Can you lovelies who declare the whole scenario a scam without ever having spoken to the guy kindly explain yourselves? There is no shortage of scamery in the world, sure, but to somehow know a foreign phone call is a scam without having gone through with it strikes me as somewhat ri-goddamn-diculous. The premise of the call doesn’t strike me as out of line with reality at all.
If you think he’s trying to sell toner or shadily find info about the company, it should be pretty easy to confirm your suspicions by actually speaking with him. He either asks creepy information or he doesn’t. It’s that simple. “Oh, it seems like he’s trying to find out employee names and…” Okay, is he or isn’t he?
Please explain the fear here.
Who said anything about it being a foreign phone call?
The reasons for suspicion have already been discussed in this thread. I’m not sure what else you’re looking for or why you’re so determined to belittle the possibility of a scam.
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I’ll go with mine - it’s pretty simple risk assessment.
Please note all of the info is from the OP, so I’m making the presumption that they’re telling the truth as clearly and fully as they know it. Obviously there will be some difference from reality, but if they’re trying to be honest, it shouldn’t be too big a difference.
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Davidm is the only IT person at a company which isn’t in the IT industry, and from what he says, his company isn’t even well-known for having a wonderful IT presence. So far so good. No problems here.
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HR passes down a call from a person who says they are interviewing IT people, and that Davidm’s company was specifically recommended to them for an interview subject. This is what’s setting the alarms off for me. WHY and HOW did they specifically get Davidm’s company name?
There are several non-scammy options, which people have repeatedly mentioned, and some others I can think of offhand:
flaky professor
overworked TA
bizarre selection criteria for IT interview subjects
name mix-up between Davidm’s company and another similarly-named company that DOES do IT
pick a name at random out of the phonebook
However, if any of those are true, there’s no real harm done when Davidm hangs up and refuses to continue the interview process. All the student has to do is go back to the professor, say some variant on “they won’t talk to me, give me another target interviewee” and his life will go on just fine. Sure, he’s in for a bit of hassle, but it shouldn’t be any big deal, and we have to remember that Davidm isn’t obligated to give a student an interview even if it’s proven that it IS a student.
Then there are the scammy options:
pumping various company people for info
trying to get IT people’s names and contacts
finding out how easy or hard it is to get connected with people in different departments.
If any of those happen to be true, then there is much greater possible risk for Davidm to continue the conversation. There could be real harm to him, his company, or his customers by talking for any longer than he has to with a person who is trying to gain information under false pretenses.
So, you balance the worst that can happen with option A - a student momentarily inconvenienced by having to find a different interview subject - with the worst that can happen with option B - my company and my specific position possibly compromised by a hacker or scam artist looking for weaknesses - and you pick based on which one is likely to cause the least amount of harm if things go pearshaped.
Sure, not every time an interaction seems “off” you’re encountering a scam, but in this particular situation, it doesn’t really hurt anyone to be careful, and it could in contrast hurt a great deal to *not *be careful.
Well, it’s not a “scam” in that it doesn’t sound like the individual is trying to con you out of money.
But, yeah, it does sound like this person is trying to gather some sort of intelligence about you or your company.
That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily for nefarious purposes. It could be a vendor or a job hunter or recruiter trying to gather information that might help generate a lead. Not that you should give out that information.
Could be face value - nervous college kid cold calling for some assignment. I’ve been that college kid. If you have a few minutes and a little bit a patience, what’s your name, your school, your professor, your major, what IT stuff are you studying, etc ought to tell you if the caller is legit.
Could go either way, but, I think non-scam. He asked you when he could call *you *back, before asking for some other names. He didn’t try to pump you for info. You had him halfway out the door with your first sentence.
Why did he choose your company? Could be a jillion reasons. Did you ask him who recommended you?
It could be someone in your company: “Hey, student, I know **davidm **in IT. Great guy! Patient, always willing to help out…”
Could be wrong, tho.
I have had two professors, within a one year timeframe, give out this same assignment. Listen, professor, if I was so intimate with a player in the field, I would be working for them instead of going to school!
Most of the time I get blind calls from college kids looking to interview someone it’s because the professor at the business school recommended us. A lot of the time this was simply because the Prof. or one of the B school admins knows one of the principals in my place of work. These guys mingle on fund raising boards and at social events etc. It’s really not that diabolical. Other times they are simply using the local Chamber of Commerce list.
Scam no college kid would do that. A high school student maybe but not a college student.
I have gotten many a phone call from students who want to know how such and such works, and what the process is for (insert task performed by IT department here) in our department.
It seems much more regular and consistent at this job, and I imagine that the assignments are because of two things- we are a government entity who shares a city with the largest and ‘flagship’ state school campus, and we are actually fairly decent and talking to students and helping them with these sorts of assignments, so they call because they heard that someone else was helped, and they spread the word.
But yes, I have received calls from students asking odd questions about every type of business process and IT process, engineering, planning, financial, etc…
It is usually the more enterprising students who think they are being ‘proactive’ and original by calling working companies instead of researching the documents available online or in libraries, records, etc.
I meant foreign as in strange or unknown.
And calm down. It might be a scam, for all I know. I just think it’s stupid to automatically assume the position of panty-twisting over a phone call that might potentially be some kind of scam. Worst case scenario is you speak with him and he’s not legit. In this case, no one is forcing you to give out information. If he starts squeezing, you can end the call. No fuss, no muss. I still don’t even know what it means to “seem like” he’s trying to get information out of you. Either someone is fishing for information or they’re not.
If you don’t want to talk to him, great; I don’t talk to people who call me out of the blue either. But to pretend like he can do harm to you over the phone that you don’t allow is pussified.
Why not? For my journalism school classes in college, it wasn’t unusual to do what was described in the OP. The main difference is that we weren’t given leads by the prof–that we had to figure out for ourselves.
Based on what’s in the OP, I think non-scam and scam are equally plausible, with me leaning towards non-scam.
I’m another who has given informational interviews to students, so my scales are tipping towards “school project” rather than “scam.”
Mostly, but not always, callers identified themselves and their school early in the phone call; and told me how they got my name. For those who didn’t, I simply asked, and the information was always forthcoming. Also mostly, but not always, interviews were conducted in person at my office–if they’re serious, they’ll show up at the appointed day and time. Still, there were a few times that somebody’s schedule made that impossible and a telephone interview was necessary.
However, in all cases–even telephone interviews–I insisted on a scheduled appointment. I typically couldn’t drop everything at once to spend enough time on the phone for an interview at the whim of a caller. The calling students understood; and in fact, most of them expected an appointment if I agreed to the interview.
It is always possible, of course, that caller in the OP had motives other than a school assignment. But based on my experience, I’d suggest that a school assignment is more likely.
I’ll note that it’s also been my experience that small/little-known places do their best not to look like small/little-known places, so the caller may not have been so wrong as to assume that there was more than one IT person in the OP’s office. I well remember working at a very small, little-known place–only three full-timers, and a couple of as-needed contractors–and hearing the receptionist-of-the-day (the position rotated among the full-timers) politely greet a caller, then put them on hold before asking everybody, “Okay, who wants to be the accounts payable department today?” Obviously, our efforts to look bigger and better-known had paid off! 
Social engineering 101.
Yes, I think most of us here know what social engineering is. How does it pertain to the OP, and why do you think it’s that and not some kid calling up for a school project?
Because the OP said:
Because it’s social engineering 101.
It definitely sets off social engineering alarm bells for me. I work in IT as well, and I wouldn’t have spoken to the person either. If it’s legitimately a student, they can go through the PR department or whatever to arrange an interview. Why would they be cold calling?
This book by Kevin Mitnick is a decent read that would definitely affect how you handle calls like this.
Why not? As a student, we absolutely cold-called people for these sorts of assignments. An PR department? Why would I even assume a small company has a PR department? Without further information from the OP, it’s impossible to say that this is a scam. I rather think that, given what we’ve been told, it’s at least as likely legitimate as it is deceptive, and more likely legitimate.
If you’re willing to consider the call, you can try to independently verify the student’s information before you proceed further. Get the name of the student, their phone number, university, course number, and professor’s name. Then, tell that this is a bad time, and you will need to call them back later. Before you call back, you can verify that the university is offering a course by that name with that professor, and you can also try to find out if that student is in that class. On the other hand, you still don’t know if the person on the line is who they claim they are…