You sound a bit green yourself.

 

This guy or guys have been working this angle for about 2 years now, that we know of. He was actually hitting drivers we had coming into orientation and were at the hotel. It was a Verizon number out of Vegas and we originally thought it was a hotel employee that was working them. No idea what became of it. We reported it to the police, but the scam has popped up a few times over the past couple years now. Problem is, people are falling for it and the scammers are staying with whatever works.

 

843-333-2886
So here's a new angle on these sorts of scams that preys on the families of truckers.
This guy, who works out of Myrtle Beach (sound familiar) finds out what motels trucking companies are using to put up their new hires. He calls the motel on the evening before orientation begins (typically sunday) and tells the clerk he is from the company (in this case "Mike from Melton") and asks to speak to the last new hire who checked in. In this way he doesn't have to know a name or ask for room numbers, something that most motels will not do. He gets connected to the room and chats to the new hire saying he is from the company asks why the new hire decided to leave their old company and then asks for an emergency contact. He then offers a story about how last week in orientation someone's cell phone kept going off and it was very distracting and the new hire should either leave the phone in the motel room or turn it off before coming to orientation.
The next day pretty much as soon as he knows orientation has begun he calls the emergency contact (typically significant others or parents) claims to be someone from the company and says that because the new hire had past experience they decided to put him right on the road with a trainer and a load to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He says that the trainee will need money to pay for insurance which the company would pay for but they want to make sure the trainee is going to stay with the company for a while since he has had a few different jobs in the past (something he found out from chatting with the student the previous night).
He asks to have the money wired to a location in Myrtle Beach and gives a contact number of 843-333-2886. (a Myrtle Beach cell number).
Naturally the emergency contact tries to get through to their son, daughter, spouse to verify this but can not since the phone is off.
This is a pretty rough situation since it preys on the ignorance of the family about how the industry works and the fact that the emergency contact cares about and is worried for their child/spouse and can be easily sucked in.
Talk to your spouses or parents about what they can expect for your training, where you'll be and for how long. Tell them they will never be asked for money by a company and if so to only send money after hearing from you.

 

Let it be known that if a recruiter asks for money, its a scam. True recruiters prefer beer and pizza over money and will always ask for that.

 

I may be green but come on....

"He tells the unwitting driver that he/she has been hired??"

I have worked for over 20 yrs, I have never had a company I never heard of call me up and tell me I am hired and then ask for $$ for training. I am not saying I could never be scammed, but DAMM, you would have to be pretty naive to fall for this crap.