Lawyers Scammed by Fake Job Ad
Updated: Some lawyers are falling prey to scam job ads.
Just ask ABA Journal freelancer Arin Greenwood. “This is the story in which you learn how a graduate of Columbia Law School—that’s me—and almost 80 other people, who really should have known better, got suckered into giving away all our personal details as well as up to two months of our lives for ‘jobs’ that never actually existed,” she writes in the Washington City Paper.
The group had responded to an ad on Craigslist that read in part: “Our financial information research company is going to be temporarily adding 15 top tier legal minds to our staff in order to conduct an intensive due diligence and legal research project in Washington, D.C. We are hiring individuals who are independent and can work from their home office and local law libraries yet can still be accountable to a team and are available to begin immediately.”
Later, Greenwood got an employment contract promising to pay her $14,000 a month for temporary, intensive work. She signed it, giving her Social Security number and her bank number so her check could be directly deposited.
Then she participated in telephone meetings and spent her days researching investment opportunities in European countries. The thought that someone could be stealing her identity had crossed Greenwood’s mind, but she was so penniless she figured it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to the scammer.
Greenwood was never paid. After investigating, she learned that the man leading the scam, Gerald Edward, was using an alias and may have been arrested in Boston a few years ago for securities fraud. Prosecutors were checking it out.
Greenwood and others filed a lawsuit on Aug. 27 in federal court in Maryland that claims breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment and violation of consumer protection and racketeering laws.
Originally published 09-14-2007 at 8:59 AM.
