The digital menagerie of an eternal online convenience store offering hope of both getting a job and meeting a lover or a partner has been convoluted by Chinese and Russian layered schemes of epic proportions as the idea of fraud has reidentified as opportunity.
Deception is incessant as Slurpee machines and innocence have been marooned as the collective rewiring and calibration of the brain are now dominating the remains of conscience. Convenience has never been so reassuring until it is not.
As online subscriptions for services are not bound by the strict regulations of terrestrial services, the one or two stop shop of convenience through devices has become nightmarish and sketchy in the style of serial murderer of words vernacular, and end users our quickly discovering that premium plans offered on certain domains are as unstable on the level of late night television credit card scandals in the 1980’s. The 30-day “free trial” period was always circumvented as the delivery through mailings from the vendor would regularly arrive after 25 days, leaving the consumer on the credit card charge hook for the full amount without the guaranteed satisfaction.
Embarking on the time machine to the future that is now, similar tactics are being used on both job and dating sites, as bots and AI have replaced legitimacy with unsustainable fantasy and demanding a heavy price. Fortunes are being made and hearts and bank accounts broken.
In order to spark revenue phony job offerings are appearing at record levels on the prevalent employment and networking site of Linkedin.com according to Fox Business News. The extent of the scam has surpassed passed rumor and the peripheral to the threshold where Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is planning to facilitate an investigation on the operating procedures of the prolific social media site geared towards in theory mating job opportunities with job seekers.
Linkedin.com premium offers plans to those seeking employment that range between $39.99 and $69.99 per month that allegedly gives individuals an edge to subscribers in applying for positions which do not in the public sphere. However, public watchdogs and critics have raised concern that the majority the job offerings are “ghost jobs” that are generated by AI and in reality do not exist.
Popular dating site and the app Bumble has also received complaints as to the verifiability of profiles featuring gorgeous women generated by software who do not actually exist and belong on a fashion runway or on a stage with a pole.
Paxton said in a statement, “LinkedIn has a duty to provide the services it advertises and ensure that consumers paying for Premium subscriptions are receiving access to legitimate job postings,” he continued. “I am investigating whether LinkedIn has misled Texans by promoting and profiting from ‘ghost jobs’ while marketing itself as a trusted platform for finding employment.”
Paxton’s actions could establish a trend where other states choose to investigate the legitimacy of the digital domain and questionable want ads offering employment.
In a scenario without winners, fake jobs and fake dating profiles have teamed up to create an ecosystem of a plot where a fictional character writer is faces the doldrums confined to frigidity of Winter and no hope for a proper drink without serious consequences. If only 7-Eleven offered frozen Margueritas instead of sugar-laden Slurpees.
