A recruiter at Uber has shared a bizarre story about a candidate who allegedly disappeared with a company-issued Apple MacBook before joining.
Taking to LinkedIn, Raghu Tenneti, a Hyderabad-based Principal Recruiter at Uber, recounted the incident, joking that the candidate had not simply ghosted the company but had “vanished from existence”. “But this guy didn’t ghost us. He vanished from existence,” he wrote in the LinkedIn post.
Tenneti said that attempts to contact the candidate after he failed to show up on his joining date were unsuccessful. “Called his number. ‘This number does not exist.’ Not switched off. Not unreachable. Does not exist. Bro didn’t block us. He erased himself from the telecom grid,” he said.
Tenneti claimed that the candidate’s LinkedIn profile had also disappeared. “Checked LinkedIn. ‘Page not found.’ He didn’t deactivate his account. He dissolved,” he wrote.
The recruiter also alleged that the address where the company laptop had been delivered turned out to be a vacant plot behind an abandoned building. “Traced the laptop delivery address. A vacant plot. Behind an abandoned building. He gave us a dead-drop location for a MacBook,” he said.
He added that Uber’s IT team attempted to track the laptop remotely but found that it had been factory reset and was operating through an encrypted proxy. “Our IT team pinged the laptop remotely. Factory reset. Encrypted proxy. Pinging from coordinates that should not exist on this planet,” Tenneti wrote, before adding, “This man didn’t skip Day 1. He faked his entire identity and vanished without a single digital footprint. That’s not ghosting. That’s a heist. And honestly? Ethan Hunt— genuinely, respect the craft. Bro we want our laptop back.”
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How did social media react?
The post quickly caught the internet’s attention, with many users reacting with disbelief and humour.
One user wrote, “This is unbelievable. OH MY GOD.”
“So you’re telling me, this guy went month on month through Leetcode problems, solved Uber’s engineering interviews, behavioral rounds, system design questions and HR… only to steal a laptop? That’s some level of patience and commitment to get a MacBook,” commented another.
“Candidate ghosting has reached a whole new, cinematic level and honestly I am not able to process the situation. Is it for real? But you definitely earn the award for the most engaging recruitment story of the year just kidding,” wrote a third user.
“This wasn’t a joining scam. This was a reverse recruitment drive. Bro interviewed you, verified your processes, collected company assets, tested incident response, and left. Somewhere there’s a boardroom presentation titled: ‘Target Organization Penetration Report — Mission Successful’,” said one user.
