Scam Alert for UX researchers

PLEASE READ: Three user research students in my current Ask Like A Pro cohort had their survey/screeners picked up by professional hustlers. They created a series of fake names and email addresses that correlate to actual people on LinkedIn (yes, they were impersonating people on this platform) who match their target audiences. They took the screeners dozens of times until they figured out the “right” criteria to participate in the paid studies. They also passed the Calendly scheduling links around and filled their calendars.

They used all typical American names, like William Jones, Annie Bernard, etc with simple gmail addresses like WilliamJones1080@gmail, or bernarda123@gmail, etc.

They definitely did their homework in so far as learning key terms related to the topics and even changing their time zones when scheduling via Calendly!

They are all of the same ethnicity and had the same non-American English accent. One provided feedback on a feature that was not revealed yet. Another said she was in New York and it was dark out. (The student is in NY too and the session was at 12noon. It was daylight. The clocks on their computers were 5 and 7 hours ahead of NY time).

One student went back to ask for identity verification and received two fake driver's licenses from “Anytown, CA”. One height was listed as 6’6” and weight as 120 lbs.

I've NEVER seen anything like this!! We’ve made all sorts of changes to how we vet and recruit for this cohort. After posting in a UX research group I belong to I am now understanding A) how fortunate I have been in past recruits and B) how this type of fraud is really increasing in our UXR industry.

I hope this situation raises your spidey senses in your own work and helps save you some time. Yes, this has been an excellent learning experience for the entire cohort and will contribute to some great case study reflections! On the other hand, it's also been a colossal waste of time which will affect our client sponsors and our timelines!

Going forward I will require my students to create a separate email address to use for their studies. We do discuss safety and email addresses specifically. I do recommend it but not everyone creates one. In this instance, one of them created a separate email address without their full name and two did not.

Please be careful out there! Looking forward to hearing multiple perspectives on this one.
-Michele