they can start. protect your credit card is the main thing for today

Any of the credit companies can do it I think.

Asks for your money to do the job, I always say no. There are a few, very few, legitimate needs for an employee to pay up front but I won't take those jobs.

I want the employer to pay me, not the other way around.

Good for you for catching the scam. There are just so many out there. I bet I get an ad or txt or message trying to scam me at least 3 times a day.

with my credit union already so that nothing would happen unless I approved it personally. And I don't carry any credit card other than my amazon prime. And that's one of those that doesn't even have a security code number on the back - it's a "never expire" card that you can't use anywhere else. We really don't use credit cards, thank goodness. It was more my social security/medicare that I was worried about, though I'm already actively drawing both right now.

They're suppose to be sending me a check via FedEx to cover the cost of software I'm suppose to buy from the company vendor. From what others on FB have said, this should be around $1300. I have no intention of even opening up the FedEx pkg. I'd like to send it back unopened. Is that an option? Has anyone ever refused a FedEx pkg? This would be my last bit of extraction from this "mess."

I did go buy a desktop PC when the one I was going to use as a "sandboxed" system died the night I set it up. But I just decided to keep it rather than taking it back. There ARE going to 87k IRS jobs opening up sometime soon, and at least some of those are going to be remote customer service positions. If I'm lucky, I could get one of those. I need something to cheer me up. And this desktop, while not anywhere near a top dog system, was a pleasant surprise for no more than I paid for it. I consider it an excellent buy; not one I'll run into again for awhile. So, I'll use it to cheer me up for now, and only add what I need to get it ready to go for a sandbox system, separate from the family network I have set up.

Meanwhile, maybe I'll call Blackboard. I worked with their software for 20+ years. Maybe they have something remote. I think rather than trusting something coming to -me-, maybe cold calling on companies is the way to trust things right now?

You always had to be alert in the old scheme,
especially if you were just starting out or had no special skills,
oh, it is the bottom feeders they prey upon...

I'm in my sixties as well, the other day I get this text that says I owe,
I know about internet scams, but this was a text, I thought it was personal,
my college aged daughter said, dad that's a scam

Of course, look at the text address - dammit cell phones are so relatively new
even to me in my mid-sixties

And to be so unscrupulous.

And don't even bring up the topic of experience.
Too many firms discount experience

‘Overemployed’ Hustlers Exploit ChatGPT To Take On Even More Full-Time Jobs

"ChatGPT does like 80 percent of my job," said one worker. Another is holding the line at four robot-performed jobs. "Five would be overkill," he said."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7begx/overemployed-hustlers-exploit-chatgpt-to-take-on-even-more-full-time-jobs

Don't worry - at the top you can listen to the transcript of all those paragraphs below.

Sorry that you ran into all the scammy fishiness. Good luck finding the traditional "good fit" you need. It's really getting scary out there...