Business and Finance

Joe Epstein’s heart did a little flip-flop when he opened an e-mail from a staffing firm that promised a portal to a new job.

"When you’re in this situation, it really picks you up," said Epstein, 58. Nearly a year after being laid off from his job as an information technology sales rep, he finds himself in a job search for the first time in a quarter-century.

As Epstein learned in the resulting telephone conversation, an ailing economy can bring out the worst in people: Companies that prey on the unemployed in their struggle to find work.

Epstein said a "very nice, very positive" woman representing the staffing firm plucked his r