Media: scammers pose as recruiters of Riot Games, Rockstar and Manticore Games and extort money from developers

Developers who tried to get a job at Riot Games, Rockstar and Manticore Games have become victims of scammers. Unknown attackers presented themselves as recruiters of companies, and then extorted hundreds of dollars from applicants. The real Riot Games is going to investigate and sue the scammers.

Valorant by Riot Games

This was told by the Polygon publication, which contacted six developers who applied to work at Riot Games.

We have chosen the main thing from the material.

• The scheme according to which the attackers acted was carefully verified. The false recruiters contacted several developers directly by emailing them an invitation to an interview. They also posted fake jobs on sites like Indeed (approx. a representative of Indeed told reporters that now the job search portal is doing everything possible to track and remove such ads).

Fake jobAfter the developer responded to a letter or an announcement on the site, he moved on to the interview stage.

• There were several interviews, and they could be held by e-mail, Discord or any other messenger.
• As one of the victims noted, everything looked authentic. Because of the pandemic, it seemed normal that the interviews were in an online format, besides, the name of the real recruiter of the company was indicated in the profile of the “Riot Games employee”. The attacker also asked a lot of questions about the candidate’s experience, as happens at regular interviews.
• After that, the developers were informed that they had successfully passed the selection, and sent a contract signed by the “head of the HR department of Riot Games”. The company’s logo was also placed on the document, which should have finally convinced of the authenticity of what happened.
• Then the attackers asked the specialists to buy the necessary equipment for work. For example, one of the victims was persuaded to pay for the purchase of an Apple iPad Pro (now such a tablet costs from $ 799).
• The false recruiters claimed that they would write a special check with which the developers would be compensated for the costs. However, to do this, they need to find out the bank details. The check was indeed sent, but invalid.
• The five developers Polygon talked to stopped communicating with the scammers as soon as they realized they had to pay for something. Nevertheless, one still lost money. Subsequently, he filed a police report, contacted the bank and contacted the real Riot Games, but almost unsuccessfully. Both the bank and the police indicated that too much time had passed since the deception and it would not be possible to return the money. Riot Games itself decided to sue the criminals. Now she is trying to find out the identity of the scammers.
• “We are upset that people who dream of working at Riot Games have been deceived. It doesn’t matter if one person was injured or several. In addition, we consider it necessary to protect our employees who are being impersonated by fraudsters,” said Dan Nabel, the company’s lawyer.
• Polygon has also been contacted by victims of false recruiters acting on behalf of Rockstar and Manticore Games. However, it is not known whether these companies have taken any action.

Recall that in May Kaspersky Lab reported a similar problem. The company pointed out that there are attackers on the ArtStation platform who pose as recruiters of large gaming companies (for example, 2K) and are tricked into paying for expensive “working equipment”.