The Elaborate Con That Tricked Dozens Into Working for a Fake Design Agency (bbc.com) 57
The Zoom call had about 40 people on it -- or that's what the people who had logged on thought. The all-staff meeting at Madbird, a "glamorous design agency" had been called to welcome the growing company's newest recruits. Its dynamic and inspirational boss, Ali Ayad, wanted everyone on the call to be ambitious hustlers -- just like him. But what those who had turned on their cameras didn't know was that some of the others in the meeting weren't real people. They were listed as participants, and as the BBC reports, some even had active email accounts and LinkedIn profiles but their names were made up and their headshots belonged to other people. The whole thing was fake -- the real employees had been "jobfished." From the report: The company had not been "shipping products and experiences locally and globally for 10 years" as it had claimed. In fact, Ali Ayad only registered Madbird with Companies House on the same day he interviewed Chris Doocey to be a sales manager - 23 September 2020. At least six of the most senior employees profiled by Madbird were fake. Their identities stitched together using photos stolen from random corners of the internet and made-up names. They included Madbird's co-founder, Dave Stanfield -- despite him having a LinkedIn profile and Ali referring to him constantly. Some of the duped staff had even received emails from him. Ali told one employee that if they wanted to get in touch with Mr Stanfield they should email him, because he was too busy with projects for Nike to jump on a call. Using facial recognition technology we were able to match Dave Stanfield's headshot to its actual owner -- a Prague-based beehive maker named Michal Kalis. When we tracked Michal down, he confirmed he had never heard of Madbird, Ali Ayad or Dave Stanfield.
Wage theft is many times the size (Score:2, Interesting)
Nevermid that when my car got stolen the only thing the cops did was take down my info so that the insurance co could threaten me with making false police statements if they wanted and then tow my car and charge me $300 to get it back when it was found.
My point is we have better places (Score:2)
Our law enforcement does a terrible job enforcing laws that actually affect our daily lives.
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Our law enforcement does a terrible job enforcing laws that actually affect our daily lives.
I'm not sure this is true. You aren't just looking at the right stakeholders. Police tend to be focused on those who pay the bills, which are tax payers and voters. Those who pay the most taxes also happen to be those who are most likely to vote, so it's really the same group.
Almost all wage theft is minimum wage theft, which does not affect this group. Indirectly it does, since minimum wage theft reduces taxes paid by those businesses, but since when does any group pay attention to indirect effects? Proper
We're talking about Wage Theft (Score:2)
Also what matters isn't who has the most money, it's who has the most votes, or it's supposed do. Yes, wage theft targets lower income earners (though I'd question if we can even say the majority is minimum wage, a *lot* of wage theft is done on the promise of commissions that never get paid). But ostensibly we're a democracy, and ostensibly cops are public servants. And finally ostensibly the law shou
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You're kind of making my point for me without realizing you're doing it.
Oh I realize I'm doing it, since I do not disagree with most of what you are saying. I am just saying it is working as designed, and the police are doing a fine job of enforcing laws that affect the daily lives of the constituents they are prioritizing.
And as I pointed out most of the people in that majority aren't getting shit for their tax payer dollars. I certainly don't.
I'd argue most people don't pay that much towards their policing, so they probably are getting something proportionate to their tax payer dollars. I pay about $14k in property taxes and $16k in state income taxes per year, which are used in part to fund my lo
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I've had my wages partially stolen at my current job. Currently trying to figure out if I can reasonably get a settlement or if I should just file a complaint. California state law requires that if someone's job requires them to provide tools that you pay them double the state minimum wage. I'm making that NOW since I handed paperwork on the consequences to my boss, but I wasn't before... so yes, I've had my wages stolen AND paid taxes... on what wages I was paid.
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Just from general conversations, I would guess that a large percentage of waitstaff do not know that employers must make up the difference if their pay plus tips is less than the general minimum wage because no employer they have ever had actually did so.
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Wrong, a person claiming theft of car (or accident for that matter) of course needs it verified by police if you are to get any insurance benefit. You are spewing nonsense. You don't have a clue about business or insurance.
Re: My point is we have better places (Score:2)
What are you even bitching about?
Are you wanting police to patrol the HR and payroll departments of companies, checking the hours everyone works against the wages they're paid?
I'm sure all the low paid workers would love having their timesheets checked and verified by the police.
"Wage theft" is not a police matter. It's a Department of Labor matter.
I assume you're American, based on your ignorance to how things really work and your "fuck the police" attitude. Most other countries also have these kind of thi
Re: My point is we have better places (Score:2)
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it's bitcoins fault, show some compassion.
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It's rsilvergun, he just makes shit up so he can come here and spout it. It makes him feel important.
in the EU there labor laws and other stuff that ca (Score:2)
in the EU there labor laws and other stuff that can lead to people running this con being on the line for some big pay outs / maybe even prison time.
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key detail: in the EU. UK is no longer a part of.
(of course, they probably have similar laws...)
Not sure about the EU (Score:2)
It's like that line about you just need to be the one who counts the votes. In law you just need to control how enforcement is done. It's not a law if it's not enforced.
Easier ways for slave labor. (Score:2)
Just call your local college and offer internships.
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It's wage theft, and he's counting on the amounts being small enough and enforcement spotty enough to get away with it. And he would have, if not for those meddling kids at the bbc and a slow news day. As it stands I'll be surpr
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Yeah, but I don't think they made any income from these people's work. There was no money coming in at all.
No customers. No products. That's what I'm trying to figure out.
The article says that maybe they hoped it would one day become a real company or that the founder just liked playing boss. Neither seems like a long-term strategy.
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I recognize that your comment was a bit of a throwaway, but it highlights how pervasive wage theft is. Many interns are actually entitled to pay by law [dlapiperaccelerate.com].
In particular, any intern that does anything actually useful to the company where they would otherwise need to hire someone to do the work.
Hmm, yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
When you think about it, you pretty much have to give a potential employer your life story ... and then when hired, your SSN, bank info for direct deposit, etc. Scary.
As more and more jobs go more and more virtual, much more opportunity for scams.
Re:Hmm, yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
Might be time to consider a separate account for direct deposits only.
can still do claw backs on pay (Score:2)
can still do claw backs on pay
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Only for what they pay you. From a business level, we have separate bank accounts for receivables, payroll, other payables, and operating capital. Individuals might need to start approaching it in a similar way.
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When you think about it, you pretty much have to give a potential employer your life story ... and then when hired, your SSN, bank info for direct deposit, etc. Scary.
Add onto that a SF86 for a security clearance and a piss test.
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You shouldn't need to provide your employer with the SF86 though, or the piss for that matter
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I was trying to come up with some kind of explanation for the "Why?" question. Why go to all this trouble, what was the endgame? Identity theft is certainly a possibility, and I suppose also stealing the work done by these people to use in some future business venture. Still seems like a lot of effort for a relatively small payout.
Re:Hmm, yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
I assumed the guy was trying to jump-start an actual ad agency, rather than this being some sort of grift. The first million is the hardest, they say so if you get enough people believing you’re already successful at something, then people are more likely to give you their business.
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I assumed the guy was trying to jump-start an actual ad agency, rather than this being some sort of grift. The first million is the hardest, they say so if you get enough people believing you’re already successful at something, then people are more likely to give you their business.
You don't jump-start an actual ad agency with so much lying between the teeth. I've worked at startups, the ones fighting for funding, and oh, the times we went without pay for months.
But there was honesty about the situation, no bs stories about opening a new office in wherever or stealing people's identities to create fake staff profile or giving a new version of one's last name on a regular basis or giving a non-existent office address.
This was a grift. I've seen these types before (disgusting, slimy
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Really? Lying is what ad agencies do for a living. I'm not sure why you'd expect them to be honest in the first place.
Did anybody know what they were doing? (Score:2)
Re:Did anybody know what they were doing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think GP is correct and this guy was trying to hustle his way into a successful business - if they'd managed to land one or two lucrative deals, they would probably have been solvent pretty quickly and everyone would have got paid and presto, he'd have been the founder of a bustling agency on the road to success.
It sounds like they didn't have enough runway to land any deals - people got suspicious (or sick of not getting paid) and bailed before they could land any deals big enough to cover the hustle.
Not trying to excuse the behaviour - it's pretty sociopathic. But so much of "entrepreneurial behaviour" and startup life is defined by this concept of "hustle" and "fake it til you make it", it's easy to see why charismatic douchebags would think they could get away with it.
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Unexplained by the programme (Score:2)
The presenter didn't suggest that; she didn't have a clue. But I tend to agree that was his motivation and by the sounds of it it nearly worked; the agency was about to get some serious contracts that might have allowed everyone to get what they were due. Instead revealing the deception collapsed the project.
They should have known birds aren't real (Score:2)
The new Séances (Score:2)
That way you can talk to your dead mom from home.
If you have a credit-card.
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That’s wonderful, isn’t it?
Welcome to The Metaverse (Score:2)
Do my wages get paid? (Score:2)
As long as they do, I'm not going to be very worried whether I'm employed by a human or Skynet...
aaand? (Score:1)
Fake it till you make it... (Score:3)
The elaborate con WHO (Score:2)
In principle, and in this context, THAT applies to objects, WHO to people. Does grammar mean nothing these days, even to editors?
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I read "The Elaborite Con" to be the grift, not the person carrying it out, meaning the grammar was correct.
I don't get it... why? (Score:5, Insightful)
So they go in depth on how people got "job fished" ... but why? Did they actually "do work" for this company? Putting together marketing crap? It really doesn't go into that. I mean, they were idiots to work "for free" for 6 months, then on a 100% contingent basis after that? I understand that desperate times means desperate measures and all that, but that's ridiculous.
Or was this a scheme to get access to employee PII, like their NIN/SSN, direct deposit info, etc? To... wipe out the non-existent funds for these poor folks?
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They weren't getting paid. A small but significant detail.
More generally - I suspect the scammer thought he could bootstrap the company by this technique, and it appeared close to success, it was about to sign some significant contracts when the delusion was revealed. It's interesting to consider whether if the agency had worked out and then it later came out how it started, whether it would still have been regarded as illegitimate.
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They weren't getting paid. A small but significant detail.
Then I don't get why they worked for that non-paying company.
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Fake it till you make it (or rake it in) (Score:1)
they won't get caught next time (Score:2)
The Valley Way of doing business, no? (Score:2)
When an entrepreneur suggested to would be VC's that his company would under-promise and over-deliver he was laughed at. He was told while he was doing that his competitors would be scooping up market share doing the opposite. Who knows, in another 6 months maybe this company would have 'made it' and then who would have had the last laugh? Either way, what was the harm? Everyone involved was taking a gamble. Could have paid off.
Pretty close to the 'real' agency world. (Score:2)
This sort of shit is flat-out criminal, but it really isn't too far off from the "real" agency world. The abysmal guidance, gouvernance and amounts of gaslighting that go on in the industry are appaling. I've seen "real" companies that weren't to far off from this sort of fraud.