> I suspect some scammer was running a game on you. They tend to go "over the top," as "dumbass filters." If someone responds credulously to an outrageous claim, then they are a "good mark." The fact they ghosted you, tells me it was a scam. I have encountered many, many scammers, since leaving my last job. It's a pretty tough field, these days.
I'm not 100% sure. I guess you could ask them, but I have been impressed with the ingenuity of scammers.
It may be as basic as getting you to open an infected document, of some kind. We tend to exchange a lot of stuff, when we do employment negotiations. I'd think an engineering manager, at a sensitive level, would be a juicy target. I've had any number of LinkedIn attempts to get at me, through offers of employment, basic networking, and attempts to get me to employ (I have a title as a CEO of a couple of 1-person companies, so I get a lot of these types of attempts).
My favorite ones, are the "attractive young women" that want to "link up" with me. I'll bet a lot of folks fall for that.
What would be the purpose of this “scam”?