Beware: a new scam via LinkedIn which actually looks legit

 

This is a story of how I ended up paying USD 1700 for a fake exam to get a fake professional certification from a fake "US" institution. Please beware and share among your contacts as this scheme seems quite new and non-evident as a scam. Even after a throughout research I have found only a few posts about it (and a lot of proud holders of fake certificates).

Long story short, a fake profile of an HR person from a top-of-the-market company in your region adds you on LinkedIn and sends a message on a job opening tailored to your area of expertise. Probably you would also have a few shared connections in the industry, and the profile of this so-called HR person would look quite good. Then you would get a hint that a role you are interested in requires a professional certification in whatever your profession is about, for example, certificate X or certificate Y. No matter what is your profession about, if you make your own research you find an official provider for all of those certificates, AIBCM (American Institute for Business Management and Communication). Then you enroll and choose the exam date, pay, and receive all the preparatory materials. Probably after you pass the exam, you get back to an “HR person” with your newly acquired certification only to find out later that another candidate was chosen for a position. 

In my case, I was approached by a self-proclaimed “Senior HR Officer of Dubai Airports” (fake profile, I assume) to find out that the position I am interested in requires a professional certification in Public Relations or Strategic Planning as CPRM or CSPM. Screenshots are below. I was thinking about some course or certification in PR for quite a while anyway as I had a bit of a break from corporate life, so I researched via Google an exam provider, AIBCM, and enrolled in the exam straight away. :)

Off course, being required to obtain a professional certification after 13 years of experience with key market players in GCC and other regions seemed a bit odd. But I have studied recently about similar professional certifications in Canada and in the UK (the legit ones) which are required when searching job in Canada as a fresh immigrant, for instance. When I just have moved to Dubai, too, I had to take a local driving course and an exam all over again, even having a Russian driving license for more than ten years. I also did not find it strange that somebody contacted me proactively as I believed my profile is such a good fit for the role. So, all these fit my picture of the world perfectly (and probably this is the reason I was fooled so easily). 

It was suggested on the AIBMC website to plan at least two months of studying the preparatory materials, but I chose the nearest available date thinking that a few weeks is quite enough to prepare given my experience. So I enrolled and paid USD 1700. The “HR person” loved my positive attitude, but I think she was a bit disappointed with such proactivity as she was just about to assist me with finding a link for the online exam with AIBMC :)

Anyway, most of communications of this “HR” seemed quite professional and the preparatory materials I received seemed okay, too (and normally I would train executives on PR). Well, it was a bit blah-blah-blah and there were some run-on sentences here and there. Still, it is not a crime or a scam not to edit your materials perfectly. The design of AIBCM website looked a bit poor, too, but again, it is not a crime yet.

But then… after a couple of days, I had some sort of feeling, probably an intuition or a creative imagination, as I had a picture of this lady having a commission from AIBCM for every student she referred. I made a better research and found a few posts on LinkedIn with people sharing very similar experiences of receiving the same messages from scammers under the ploy of “HR officers” for other top-of-the-market organizations in GCC, such as Neom or Emaar. And guess what, those sweet “HR angels” also have suggested candidates pass one or another certification provided exclusively by AIBCM. Screenshots are provided below (please as with previous screenshots consider that the photos and identities in those profiles used by scammers should be fake too). At this stage, I also realized that my “HR officer” from Dubai Airports is not connected to any other Dubai Airport staff on LinkedIn, and that my payment made through the web-site of “an American institution based in the state of Delaware” AIBCM went to Jordan.

For me, this new information was quite enough. Firstly, I have written to this AIBCM to ask for a refund and as I have not got any response, I reported the fraudulent transaction to my bank (a local bank that issued a Visa card I paid with was not too supportive so far, but this is a separate story, hope it works out). Secondly, I sent a request to Dubai Airports to find out whether the person who contacted me on LinkedIn works for their organization. I also double-checked that no one from senior PR practitioners from the US I know has ever heard about AIBCM (I know I should have done it from the beginning, but would you really bother people with such requests if smith seems simple and direct to you?) No one at AIBCM was not picking up their telephone either. Thirdly, I just have written to all the relevant authorities in the US (as they use a ploy of a US-based institution), Canada (as the phone number on the website is Canadian), and Jordan (as the payment went to Jordan) about this scam and have shared the full story here with you.

Hope this helps others to avoid the situation I have been into. Well, the positive side too is that at least I have not wasted a month of my precious life preparing for this fake “exam”.

Please be aware of your communications via LinkedIn or any other platforms (as LinkedIn is a great platform by itself, but unfortunately some people may use it for the wrong purposes). And now you also know where you definitely SHOULD NOT top up your PR or any other professional skills, definitely not at this "Leading US whatever" AIBCM. 

I promise to share soon my other much more positive experiences of studying Communications and Creative Writing with Oxford University, the University of California, Davis, and other cool institutions around the globe. So please subscribe to my blog and stay tuned)

Photo by John Noonan on Unsplash