What I'm saying is, if my school had a suitable "line" open for an Associate Professor of Practice/Industry in journalism, and if I were on the hiring committee (as I often am for such positions). And if Nidhi's profile were in consideration. I'd be okay hiring her over email.

Y'all have no idea how chaotic 2020 was for US universities (and continues to be). I haven't been to my office in 10 months.
In that context, everything Nidhi describes in her post tracks perfectly. I was on the inside of some hiring processes last year. That's how they went

The visa process was especially screwed up by Trump and Pompeo in 2020 so "how did she not suspect during visa paperwork?" is not a legit objection. We here in actual YS univs were struggling to cope with the visa situation for incoming international students and faculty.

So my larger first point is, from whatever I've seen and read, I don't think Nidhi was particularly gullible or even conceited, as some folks are suggesting, to believe that Harvard made her an offer. Her resume could very legit justify at least consideration for such a job.

The second point is my intuition (and it's just an intuition so far) that there was some inside involvement from someone associated with Harvard in this scam. Someone who knew how the process works from the inside. And could side step basic googling verifications.

That they strung her along for months, to me, indicates sophisticated targeting, not just a random catfishing prank or even a garden variety phishing attack. This is someone very sophisticated somehow connected to Harvard who wanted to target Nidhi Razdan and succeeded.

Anyway, I'll close by saying, this scam is really terrifying as an academic. And as someone who's started some sabbatical shopping at some nice universities, I'm gonna do extra due diligence at every step. I already get clumsy phishing attempts like this.

There but for the grace of a scammer dumb enough to write something incomprehensible like "Please do let me accept my request for the next set of action plan", goes I.
Remember that.
I've been scam immune so far.
Not arrogant enough anymore to think I will be immune forever.

This is a good P.S. for the whole thread from another indian origin US academic. https://twitter.com/sibinmohan/status/1350433361668530181?s=19

P.P.S. Since this has blown up a bit, remember I'm not a spokesperson for Nidhi nor for Harvard. I am just giving you process details and why to me, as a career academic who lived through covid chaos in US univs, it is very plausible. Don't interrogate me about her specifics!