Monthly Archives: May 2025

Scam Job on Indeed Comes Back

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When I published the scam about the proofreading job, I thought that would be the end of it. I had blocked all communications I had received. I was wrong. The scam job on Indeed came back again.

Kristen sent the text message, just like she sent the last one. This time, however, she told me to contact Robert Eldred at Omegahm. I decided that I would look up the information for fun. The first Robert Eldred I found was a CFP, but the name appears to be fairly common. This time the email was missing an “s” omagehms is a legitimate website.

In the end, I texted back telling them to stop scamming people. I’m sure that text won’t change anything. Now, I have to remember how to block a number on my phone again.

This illustrates why scammers win. There’s a good chance that these text messages are automated. They send them out to hundreds of thousands of people. They only need a couple of people to fall for the scam and they can make thousands of dollars. They can steal money and identities, and the identities are probably worth more.

I am fortunate; I worked in educating people how to avoid scams. I didn’t fall for the first one, and I didn’t fall for the second one. That’s the problem, though. Scams aren’t about people for scammers. They are about numbers. At some point, I fully expect I will fall for a scam despite my suspicious nature and relative expertise.

Scammers know how to emotionally manipulate people. Once they have you running scared, your logic will turn off, and you’ll be ripe for the pickings. You will feel bad afterwards. You shouldn’t. They found the right buttons to push on a day when you weren’t at your best. It happens. It sucks. But IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

If you see a scam, even if you fall for it, you need to shout it out from your social media platform. Help others avoid the scam. Make the scammers come up with something new. None of us can be the Beekeeper (affiliate link), but we can all do our best to smoke these reprehensible scum out and cut off their revenue. The scam job at Indeed will come back. Stay vigilant.

Job Scam at Indeed

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When I saw the job ad for a Proofreader/Copy editor for “Landscape Services,” I applied. I proofread and copy edit books, and I’ve got a ton of experience in SEO writing for landscaping companies. It would be a great fit. More importantly, the job was listed at $41.33 an hour, was remote, and could be part- or full-time. I also at that point in my savings where if I don’t find some work beyond what I have in the next six weeks, I’m going to be begging on a street corner. I’m feeling the pressure, especially because I’ve only had three interviews for two jobs.

The application took about 90 minutes.

Then I got a text from Kristen. I don’t know Kristen, but it’s about a PROOFREADER job. “Please confirm your interest and email with peter@ehrinpractices.com.” Because I have a dumb phone, I go to my laptop and type in the web address first. Nothing comes up. I don’t think anything of it. I’ve been having problems with my computer, and I figure that it must be that or maybe it’s the browser. Who knows? So, I go to InboxDollars and use their search engine: ehrinpractices.com.

The phrase is so generic that nothing tangible comes up. So, I highlight my search and go to Google. (Yes, I know, but Google is still the best search engine available.) Google shows me ehrinpractice.com. Not “practices?” I need a job, and this one seems like a great fit that would allow me the opportunity to be anywhere I want to be. Maybe, it’s how their email is set up, I rationalize. I look at the website. They produce software and guides, so they could likely use a copy editor. I go to my gmail account and email Peter.

Peter Fasolo gets back to me about 3:30pm and says can we do an interview tonight or tomorrow at 10am? Otherwise, I have availability all next week, Monday to Saturday from 10 to 6pm EST. Here’s the Teams link. Please checkout the job description and the company culture before we talk.

The pdf pulls up in my browser. I click on the link to the teams meeting and get Peter’s name. I send him a message that 10am EST would be fine tomorrow (Saturday). I shouldn’t have done either of those things. I could’ve ended up with a virus or ransomware or worse. At the time, I still didn’t think I was getting scammed. The company seemed legit. I had applied for a proofreader job with about the same pay rate: $45 in the job description. Why did I start feeling queasy?

I’ve had and I’ve given a lot of fraud and scam training. It’s easy to spot fraud when it’s not your emotions and your personal situation. A lady once told me that someone she never met offered her $50,000 for every script she wrote. The woman was in her 80s and had never written a script in her life. She was adamant that the job was not fake and she just needed to cash the check to get the equipment. I’m a writer; there’s no way anyone would offer her that kind of deal. She didn’t want to hear it because she needed the money, it made her feel like she was doing something to help herself, and it gave her a sense of identity and belonging.

That didn’t click in my brain until much later. I just felt like something was off. I told Jenya I thought I was getting scammed, and I asked her to look at it. We spent 40 minutes researching the job, the company, Peter Fasolo. These are the discrepancies we found:

  • Why was the original job posting listed as “Landscape Services” and the email from and EHR company?
  • Why was the offer for more than $40? Don’t get me wrong, a good editor can do wonders for your site, and I am completely worth that kind of money, but it seemed a little excessive, especially when they bumped it up to $45. My thought process said they wanted to keep the people they hired, and the company was in the UK.
  • Why was the website “ehrinpractice.com,” but the email was “ehrinpractices.com?”
  • Why didn’t Peter have his picture in teams?
  • Why weren’t there any people listed on the website?
  • Peter Fasolo was an HR person for Johnson and Johnson until 2024; Kristen (Mullholland) replaced him.
  • Why were they scheduling an interview on a Saturday for a job that’s Monday to Friday?
  • The text came from an 833 number, which have a high propensity for use in scams.

Any one of these on its own isn’t necessarily fraud. Add them up, however, and the probability is distinctly higher. Jenya and I decided that this was a scam. I blocked Peter on teams. I blocked the phone number. I reported the job listing to Indeed. I blocked the email account.

There’s still that doubt in the back of my mind. I spent three hours on dealing with this “job.” It could be real. It was definitely what I was looking for. What if I’m paranoid? What if I’m wrong, and I just gave up the opportunity of a lifetime? I won’t likely ever know.

And I still need a job. With every passing day, that pressure grows, and I become more susceptible to taking a job that isn’t legitimate.

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The Most Expensive Flowers I Ever Bought

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Jenya, my wife, likes to get flowers. When we started dating, she said she didn’t really like cut flowers because they would be dead in a few days. That’s changed. She likes the beauty that fresh flowers can bring to a home, and they elevate her mood. I was working one of part-time, on-call jobs at Fred Meyer when I saw that they had flowers in the bargain bin.

$2.64, to make my wife happier? That’s easy. I picked them up, realized I didn’t know if they would be cat-friendly, and decided to get them anyway. Surely, Jenya would know.

I brought them home. Jenya enjoyed them. Sima ate some parts of them, not a lot, but she’s a cat. That’s what cats do. They sat on our counter overnight.

The next morning, Sima got up with us but then went back to bed. She slept most of the day. It was overcast. I blamed the weather.

The next day, she vomited and went to the bathroom five times in one hour. Even though she was in the bathroom, she was only leaving little balls of mucus, and only one or two at a time.

The third day, she vomited again. For the briefest of moments, I thought about waiting until I pre-arranged appointment a week from this incident. But I decided that I didn’t know enough about anything to make that decision. I called the vet to see if we could get her in.

We went to the vet the next morning. Sima was running and jumping and behaving normally, but I had scheduled the appointment. Sima didn’t want to go, and she told us loudly that she was fine. We went anyway.

The vet examined Sima and looked at a photo of the flowers. “What are those?” We didn’t know, but the vet tech used her phone to google the types of flowers. “They’re lilies. They could be Peruvian or they could be white. It’s hard to tell. Let’s go ahead and do some bloodwork on Sima, check her kidneys. Some lilies cause renal failure. Some aren’t that bad. I’ll go look up the flower.”

The vet went to look up the flower, and the tech took Sima to do the bloodwork. When they returned, the vet said it was difficult to say which flower was in the picture. We’d need to wait 15 minutes for the blood results. When she returned again, she said everything looked normal, except for her renal measures, which were a little elevated. The vet wasn’t too worried. We’d arrived too late to provide any mitigating treatment, anyway. So, we would need to come back in a week’s time to do some follow up testing.

$447.74 for the vet visit. Those are the most expensive flowers I ever bought. When I messaged my sister, the first thing she asked was if I needed money.

To have to reduce this situation to the monetary stress it caused sickens me, even if I’m trying to make light of it. I had to take my kitty in to get help. Now, rather than rejoicing that she’s likely to be okay, I have to hope that I’ll have a job within the next month, so I have the money to pay the bill.