“Cool background - maybe he’ll even be our client”. Most people adding me on LinkedIn these days pitch outsourced dev teams, lead-gen bots, and the odd private jet service. So, I was surprised waking up to not one, but two, senior ex-FAANG leaders asking to connect.
)
)
I checked the first profile: “Wow, this guy has done some cool stuff. Too bad he’s no longer with OpenAI - he could’ve been a user of Inex One. Now he’s probably looking to be an expert”. Checking the next guy, I had a déjà vu moment.
Hadn’t I just seen this CV somewhere?
Imposters stole my morning
This was odd enough to send me down a rabbit hole. Popping back up again, here’s what I found:
Both LinkedIn accounts were verified with government IDs. Can’t be that fraudulent then, can they? LinkedIn verifies with Persona, one of the more advanced tools. A verified ID most likely means they possess a valid ID of someone with the name they show on LinkedIn.
Both profiles had been updated in the past few weeks. And both profile pics smelled like AI (with Mona Lisa smiles and semi-blurry background).
Both had recently gone freelance, with keyword-rich profiles from their past roles.
Both had connected with lots of people I know in expert networks.
Both had begun posting 4 weeks ago, sharing LinkedIn content in an AI way (mostly reposts with some little generic take. They even reshared the same posts many times).
)
)
So far - it might all be a bona fide misunderstanding. These guys might be hard-working boomers who just reactivated their LinkedIn profiles, finding their way.
But then Google served me a lead: it had cached their old LinkedIn pages. I could see both guys’ old LinkedIn titles and profile pics. Both had recently been students at an undergraduate CS program in Asia, before adding 30+ years of experience.
)
I paused there. What do you do with this information?
Quick search on Inex One: none of our expert network partners had recruited these people as experts (had they been, they would likely have been caught by either our partners’ vetting or by our systems).
I sighed, went to get a cup of coffee, and got on with my regular workday.
The ring widens
Over the next two weeks, the pattern repeated: More people who recently left FAANG-etc. to become independent consultants added me on LinkedIn. Their profiles were verified but had all been recently updated. Again, Google had cached their old LinkedIn pages - revealing they were students at that uni - but now their LinkedIn profiles showed a senior person by the same name.
So I decided to act.
I first verified that they weren’t merely role-playing, but indeed looked for expert consultations:
)
Then I shared a draft of this post with them:
)
Imposters exposed, now back to work
The next day, most of them had reverted to their old profiles. Interestingly, a couple of them just went quiet on me (and stopped reposting slop), but didn't change their profiles.
Either way, I’m not outing their names. These are entrepreneurial young students, who probably didn’t understand the gravity of what they were doing. Let's hope they’ll learn from this and rather direct their talents towards building something useful.
The 3 types of fraud in expert networks
When doing expert calls, you expect to get:
a real person,
posing as themselves,
clearly stating what they know and where they’re unsure.
Fraudsters try to meddle with each. Three types of expert fraud threaten expert networks:
A real person, posing as themselves (correct CV), but using ChatGPT to answer stuff they’re unsure of or simply don’t know - when it seems plausible that they might know.
A real person, posing as someone else (fake/ameliorated CV, or hijacked LinkedIn), making stuff up.
A fake person (bot), posing as someone else (fake CV), making stuff up.
)
The adjacent survey industry is suffering from all three types of fraud. Especially consumer-focused survey firms (charging rather little per completed survey) have slim budgets for vetting respondents. Conversely, expert networks have the margins to vet experts. It just comes down to competence and effort.
How to run expert interviews free from fraudsters
Inex One is the aggregator of expert networks. More than 8,000 clients use it to run expert calls fast, efficiently and securely. We partner with the best expert networks and survey firms, who each have internal expert vetting systems in addition to ours.
Admittedly, no system is perfect and occasionally an expert in category 1-2 slips through to a client. Where spotted, clients pay nothing, the imposter gets nothing, and we block them from participating in research with all our clients and all our partner networks. As such, Inex One works as an added layer of security vs. contracting directly with single expert networks.
By shedding light on the problem - and staying at the forefront of combatting fraud - we give help clients get insights with confidence.
Curious about Inex One? Get started today.
)
)
)
)
)