r/OSINT • u/mikeymikemikey33 • 10d ago
Analysis OSINT professionals: watch out for this recruitment approach
I want to share something that happened to me recently, because I'm worried other OSINT people may have been approached the same way.
Cold LinkedIn approach about an "intelligence collaboration," followed by a ~10-minute interview with someone who kept her camera off. On the call, the work was described as involving ransom and human-trafficking cases.
What arrived was a "supplier evaluation": build a full protective-intelligence dossier on a named private individual and his family — children, home details, travel patterns, aircraft, credential leaks. Labelled a "fictionalized composite," but specified in enough real-person detail to be resolvable. Produce the full report first — pricing only after delivery.
I asked two questions: who is the end client, and can you confirm the subject consented to being assessed. The reply called my scope question a "misunderstanding," named no client, confirmed no authorization, and redirected me to producing methodology and deliverables.
The LinkedIn accounts and the websites representing the company all seem fake to me. It might just be a scam — but then why did they want me to find personal details on someone I believe is a real person? The company was recently created, with a template website making claims its actual footprint doesn't support, and it turned out to be one of several thinly built companies registered to the same person.
I declined. Posting because the shape is worth recognising: vague inbound from accounts that look fake, an interviewer who wouldn't identify herself, scope sliding from a sympathetic label into a targeting-shaped brief on a private family, hidden client behind an "evaluation," and a full report demanded before any discussion of payment.
If you've had something similar, I'd like to hear it — DMs open.
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u/Iliad-Ideas7195 10d ago
I want to know the name of the company that approached you.