What the Heck is a Mandy or Amanda Scam?

I recently moved to a new city and made some adjustments to my profile on Indeed. Lots of employers started sending me messages, telling me they thought I’d be the perfect match for a job within their company. I wasn’t interested in most of the listings, but there were a handful that caught my attention. Most of these job listings were remote, with a higher income than I was used to.

The hiring managers at these jobs usually wouldn’t be interested in someone like me, but suddenly they were. I assumed it was because people were having trouble finding qualified candidates and lowered some of their standards, or at very least admitting you didn’t need a college degree to do a simple job.

One of the job listings that excited me was for a retail buyer position at ‘confidential’. Maybe it should have been a red flag that they listed their company as confidential, but I’d always been interested in the retail buying process, so I clicked on the job listing. To my surprise, there wasn’t much needed to qualify me for the position, only a high school diploma or GED. I thought it might have been a mistake but sent my resume anyway.

I didn’t expect to hear from anyone, but a few days later, I received a text message that only said hello with my first and last name. A chill ran down my spine as I wondered who the text message was from. Was it the creepy guy from my former workplace? Maybe it was an ex-boyfriend that I wanted nothing to do with? I didn’t confirm who I was. I simply demanded to know who I was speaking to.

He told me his name and that he’d gotten my resume from a post searching for a registered nurse. Alarm bells went off. Why would he need both a retail buyer and a nurse? Sure, he could have owned a hospital and been looking for both a nurse and someone to buy for his giftshop, but I found that unlikely. I did a quick google search and found that he was actually a student. I blocked his number and went on with my day.

Later that night, I got a message from someone claiming to be lonely and missing me. They instantly attached a photo of a blonde woman. I recognized the picture from TikTok, where many had stated it was part of a human trafficking scam. I didn’t reply, and I blocked that number as well, but this time I felt uneasy.

Was what I’d seen on TikTok true? I knew most people on TikTok are just hoping to go viral or to get a career started, so I rarely put much thought into the short videos. Still, the idea that the person on the other end of the text message had ill intentions toward me didn’t sit well with me. I found it especially disturbing since I’d recently given my resume out, hoping to find a job where I could better myself.

Upon doing some minimal digging, I discovered that this is a Mandy or Amanda scam. If I had answered, the ‘woman’ would have acted embarrassed and tried to strike up a conversation with me. She would have then tried to point me toward an adult website or try to get me to give her money. I’d gotten similar spam messages on Xbox and PlayStation, and it was as big of a deal as the TikTokers made it out to be.

The next day, the guy from Indeed messaged me with a new number, and I blocked him once more. Hopefully, I don’t hear from him again. I’m not sure if they targeted me for this scam because I applied to this job, or if a scammer just got my phone number. To be on the safe side, I blocked both and put the incident behind me. I’m also planning to be more careful with who I send my resume out to, and I’m going to edit my resume contact info so that it’s more difficult for something like this to happen again.