Can we have our VP of Global Revenue back? AI fraud turned him into a Recruiter

Apparently, Jim Preston has become a recruiter.

Unfortunately, not a very good one.

Over the last six months, Veremark’s VP of Global Revenue has had several people contact him after receiving emails from someone pretending to be him. These messages usually offer an exciting new role with a mystery company, a fast-moving hiring process, and just enough flattery to make the whole thing feel believable.

The process appears to go something like this:

• Exciting opportunity.
• Strong interest from the hiring company.
• Request for a CV.
• Then, suddenly, a problem.
• “Sorry, your CV isn’t compatible with employer AI screening technology.”
• But don’t worry. There is good news. They can rewrite it.
• For a fee, of course.

At that point, most people realise something is not quite right.

For avoidance of doubt, Jim is not recruiting for mystery companies. He is not sending emails from Gmail accounts. He is not charging anyone to rewrite their CV. 

Jim is still very much our VP of Global Revenue at Veremark, and if he ever contacts someone about Veremark, it will come from a veremark.com email address.

The irony of someone impersonating a revenue leader at a background screening and identity verification company, in order to run a recruitment scam, is not lost on us. If nothing else, it proves the market need.

Jokes aside, this is becoming a serious problem.

AI has made impersonation easier, faster and more convincing. Fraudsters no longer need to send clumsy messages full of obvious spelling mistakes and strange formatting. They can produce professional-looking emails, polished job descriptions, fake recruiter profiles and convincing hiring processes in minutes.

That means the old warning signs are not always enough.

A message can look professional and still be fake.

A recruiter profile can look credible and still be stolen.

A job opportunity can sound exciting and still be a scam.

And the person you think you are speaking to may not be who they say they are.

That is why verification matters.

For us, trust is central to every hiring conversation. Trust in candidates. Trust in employees. Trust in hiring decisions. But trust cannot simply be assumed because someone has written a good email, attached a convincing CV or used the name of someone who appears to work at a real company.

You need to check.

Before sharing personal information, documents or money, it is worth taking a moment to verify who is on the other side of the conversation.

For employers, the risk goes beyond candidates being targeted by fake recruiters.

The same tactics can be used against hiring teams. Someone applying for a role may not be who they claim to be. A polished CV may include invented experience. An interview may involve false documents, synthetic identity details or even AI-assisted impersonation.

Hiring is no longer just a people decision. It is an access decision.

When you hire someone, you may be giving them access to internal systems, customer data, financial information, intellectual property and communications platforms. In remote and global hiring environments, that access can be granted before the person has ever been met in real life.

That is why identity verification and background screening are not box-ticking exercises. They are basic controls for protecting the business, the workforce and the genuine candidates applying for roles in good faith.

None of this means people need to become cynical about every message, every candidate or every opportunity. Most people are genuine. Most hiring conversations are legitimate. Most recruiters are not secretly trying to sell CV rewrites.

But everyone does need to be more careful.

Fraud has become more convincing. AI has lowered the barrier to impersonation. And identity is now one of the most important things any organisation can verify.

So, if you receive an email from “Jim” offering a dream job and asking you to pay for a CV rewrite, unfortunately, there is no dream job. Someone is simply after the contents of your wallet.

And it definitely is not Jim.

Stay safe out there.

If you want to connect with the real Jim, to talk about outsourcing your background screening checks, here’s his LinkedIn. You can also reach out to Jim and the team here.

Oh, by the way, we, Veremark, are actually hiring right now. 

Check out our latest job openings. 👀