Fake design agency in strange fraud

[marty21]

BBC News - The elaborate con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency

Jobfished: the con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency

Dozens of young people were tricked into thinking they were working for a glamorous UK design agency - which didn’t really exist.

www.bbc.co.uk

Very strange story , bloke sets up a design agency , hires folk on commission only basis, they pitch for him , some of them do this for months in the hope of BIG COMMISSION, borrow thousands to get them to the big pay off , and it was all a con. I don't understand what he was making out of it (maybe Instagram income ?) . I don't understand why people would go into so much debt on a vague promise of commission.

Many years ago when I first came to London , maybe 89/90 , I went for an interview at a ad sales place . They said I'd have a 12 week training period before I could earn commission, I asked them how I would survive for those 12 weeks , pay my rent , bills , etc. They said they'd lend me the money & I'd pay it back from the commission. I said , so at the end of these 12 weeks , I might turn out to be shit at selling, they might not give me a job, and I'd owe them £3k (I think that was the deal) . They said yes , I said I wasn't interested.

 

[BristolEcho]

Lots of reasons. Desperation and a little bit of greed. I suspect there are a number of jobs that get offered out like that.

Instagram and it's influencer hell that is easy to manipulate can give a convincing facade too. I set up a spoof travel one to take the piss out of someone I knew and it was so easy to get followers using the right tags and engaging with others doing the same.

Watched the video. He is claiming he had an office and when challenged he said it's a digital company with a digital office. Welcome to the Metaverse.

Will watch the documentary.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I watched the BBC documentary on this. Strange thing was I kind of sympathised woth the scam artist bloke's point that if you've got people working for you doing stuff then you've got a 'real company'. OK so this guy skipped a few steps but legitimate companies basically run the same scam all the time, just with more paperwork and with business partners who aren't just random photos taken off instagram. Plenty of startups are basically nothing and still tout around for staff and investment.

As for not doing any actual work, well it's a marketing company. There's not one cunt in that whole sector doing any actual work. The biggest villains in the TV show were the 'genuine' marketing twats weeping about their stolen catchphrase as if it were a plagiarised work of art or something.

 

[two sheds]

There was a story on reddit about someone who was asked to apply for a software job with an interview which involved writing some code to solve one of their production problems. He didn't get the job and later found out there wasn't actually a job to apply for.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

did he make a penny out of it or was it just influencer buff myself stuff?

 

[ddraig]

Crazy story! almost posted it yesterday and forgot!
Well done those women digging deeper, like to think i'd do similar

 

[DaveCinzano]

BBC News - The elaborate con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency

Jobfished: the con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency

Dozens of young people were tricked into thinking they were working for a glamorous UK design agency - which didn’t really exist.

www.bbc.co.uk

Very strange story , bloke sets up a design agency , hires folk on commission only basis, they pitch for him , some of them do this for months in the hope of BIG COMMISSION, borrow thousands to get them to the big pay off , and it was all a con. I don't understand what he was making out of it (maybe Instagram income ?) . I don't understand why people would go into so much debt on a vague promise of commission.

Many years ago when I first came to London , maybe 89/90 , I went for an interview at a ad sales place . They said I'd have a 12 week training period before I could earn commission, I asked them how I would survive for those 12 weeks , pay my rent , bills , etc. They said they'd lend me the money & I'd pay it back from the commission. I said , so at the end of these 12 weeks , I might turn out to be shit at selling, they might not give me a job, and I'd owe them £3k (I think that was the deal) . They said yes , I said I wasn't interested.

When I was a teenager my parents were very much of a 'you're not going to lounge around here in the school holidays doing fuck-all, you're gonna have to get a job' disposition.

They often made 'helpful' suggestions of jobs I could apply for. The oddest advert they circled for me in the local rag was for leaflet distributers, no details except a telephone number. Not a premium rate one or anything, just a regular number.

I reluctantly called it, spoke to someone who took my address, and they sent me a box of leaflets and instructed me to deliver them through the letterbox to houses in various roads near me. But the text of the leaflet was basically the same as the advert I had answered - earn money delivering our leaflets, call this number.

Even as I was doing it it felt shonky, but I couldn't figure out how it functioned as a profitable scam. I mean, I knew I was wasting my time, and obviously I never got paid anything (obviously), but apart from a little time and physical exertion, I wasn't investing anything.

It was like a dull art prank, though it did get the olds off my back for a week or two.

 

[two sheds]

When I was a teenager my parents were very much of a 'you're not going to lounge around here in the school holidays doing fuck-all, you're gonna have to get a job' disposition.

They often made 'helpful' suggestions of jobs I could apply for. The oddest advert they circled for me in the local rag was for leaflet distributers, no details except a telephone number. Not a premium rate one or anything, just a regular number.

I reluctantly called it, spoke to someone who took my address, and they sent me a box of leaflets and instructed me to deliver them through the letterbox to houses in various roads near me. But the text of the leaflet was basically the same as the advert I had answered - earn money delivering our leaflets, call this number.

Even as I was doing it it felt shonky, but I couldn't figure out how it functioned as a profitable scam. I mean, I knew I was wasting my time, and obviously I never got paid anything (obviously), but apart from a little time and physical exertion, I wasn't investing anything.

It was like a dull art prank, though it did get the olds off my back for a week or two.

Clearly a pyramid scheme aiming to get everyone in the UK delivering leaflets to each other

 

[DaveCinzano]

Clearly a pyramid scheme aiming to get everyone in the UK delivering leaflets to each other

A prototype for EARN £££ AS A TAKEAWAY DELIVERY DRIVER flyers on takeaways

 

[two sheds]

A prototype for EARN £££ AS A TAKEAWAY DELIVERY DRIVER flyers on takeaways

or EARN £££ AS A TAKEAWAY DELIVERY DRIVER FLYER DELIVERER

 

[DaveCinzano]

or EARN £££ AS A TAKEAWAY DELIVERY DRIVER FLYER DELIVERER

I'm tempted

 

[miss direct]

I think the main guy is Iranian/British Iranian. Having worked with lots of men from Iran before, I can say that they can be really enterprising. It's entirely possible that he never intended this to be a scam and thought it would be successful.

 

[equationgirl]

When I was a teenager my parents were very much of a 'you're not going to lounge around here in the school holidays doing fuck-all, you're gonna have to get a job' disposition.

They often made 'helpful' suggestions of jobs I could apply for. The oddest advert they circled for me in the local rag was for leaflet distributers, no details except a telephone number. Not a premium rate one or anything, just a regular number.

I reluctantly called it, spoke to someone who took my address, and they sent me a box of leaflets and instructed me to deliver them through the letterbox to houses in various roads near me. But the text of the leaflet was basically the same as the advert I had answered - earn money delivering our leaflets, call this number.

Even as I was doing it it felt shonky, but I couldn't figure out how it functioned as a profitable scam. I mean, I knew I was wasting my time, and obviously I never got paid anything (obviously), but apart from a little time and physical exertion, I wasn't investing anything.

It was like a dull art prank, though it did get the olds off my back for a week or two.

I remember that one, there were always cards in local shops of the same thing when I was a student. I think there was a fee involved in getting the leaflets, but it's a long time ag. It had the whiff of a pyramid scheme about it.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I remember that one, there were always cards in local shops of the same thing when I was a student. I think there was a fee involved in getting the leaflets, but it's a long time ag. It had the whiff of a pyramid scheme about it.

It's easy to say, 'if you have to pay out of your own pocket for anything then it's a fake job and you should walk away' but again, all sorts of jobs make you pay for stuff yourself and/or work for free in various ways. Fronting the cost of a DBS is normal, unpaid training/shadowing is normal, paying for uniform is normal and having costs for any of these things clawed back from your salary is normal.

Basically taking the absolute fucking piss out of workers is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

It reads to me that he’s a bit of a fantasist who subscribed to the ‘build it and they will come’ model.

Don’t forget he created an entirely false life/work history for himself, just like other conmen do.

With the influencer phenomenon there are people out there that believe what they see and think that there is money to be made just by pretending to do the thing you wish to be doing as they feel that’s what all the others are doing. They’re not. They all have rich backers (mum and dad normally).

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I think the main guy is Iranian/British Iranian. Having worked with lots of men from Iran before, I can say that they can be really enterprising. It's entirely possible that he never intended this to be a scam and thought it would be successful.

He pretended to have a top class degree and high flying career with Nike. He’s just a regular grifter.

 

[miss direct]

He pretended to have a top class degree and high flying career with Nike. He’s just a regular grifter.

Ha, I have come across people who claim to have graduated from Cambridge University because they have a Celta certificate

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Ha, I have come across people who claim to have graduated from Cambridge University because they have a Celta certificate

Just like Walts from the military, none of these people claim to have a Desmond from East Anglia, it’s always Oxford or SAS…

 

[BristolEcho]

It's easy to say, 'if you have to pay out of your own pocket for anything then it's a fake job and you should walk away' but again, all sorts of jobs make you pay for stuff yourself and/or work for free in various ways. Fronting the cost of a DBS is normal, unpaid training/shadowing is normal, paying for uniform is normal and having costs for any of these things clawed back from your salary is normal.

Basically taking the absolute fucking piss out of workers is a feature, not a bug.

Of course. There should be a documentary on the many unpaid hours in health and social care for example.

This guy's still a dickhead though. Regardless of if he did it for greed or ego.

 

[Orang Utan]

Finding it hard to sympathise with anyone here if I’m honest. But I’ve always had it in for the kind of people who he targeted. ‘Ambitious’, ‘go-getters’, anyone who wants to work in Dubai. Fuck em

 

[editor]

I remember being asked to pitch some ideas for a company website back in the dotcom boom days. I've always refused to dedicate any amount of time for a pitch, so I banged out a few extra quick ideas and sent them over. They got back and told me that they'd decided to do the job inhouse and wouldyoubeliveit? Just about all of my ideas were on their site when it appeared. Which was shit anyway because they weren't able to do the job properly. They soon flopped into oblivion. Wankers.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Ha, I have come across people who claim to have graduated from Cambridge University because they have a Celta certificate

You've met Iain Duncan Smith?

 

[killer b]

Just like Walts from the military, none of these people claim to have a Desmond from East Anglia, it’s always Oxford or SAS…

There are real measurable benefits to people thinking you have an oxbridge degree, which is why con artists pretend to have them. The SAS fantasists are a different thing altogether I think

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Celta certificate

Ooooh
thanks
Never realised I had graduated from there with my CIT from prison days.

 

[pogofish]

I remember something similar going-on with various graphic arts/technical drawing firms away-back in the day here.

They all seemed to track-back to one guy who I’wont name but he shared it with a well known Britpop-inspiring/mod superstar of then and now, who looked to lure-in recently qualified graphic design and engineering/technical drawing students/apprentices and those with ability but less formalised qualifications.

The promises of big commission were there, from work for his range of “blue-chip” clients (mainly little oil service companies at the shitey end of the sector) but if it ever appeared, it was derisory. Most folk I knew who took him-up knew they were being exploited from day-one but looked on it as a chance to build-up a better portfolio of relevant work in a semi-pro environment that might one day help them land a real job in the established commercial studios/drawing offices of real oil companies - and for at least some, it did.

The big mistake they made was believing his twisted interpretation of the “training“ aspect of the benefit rules of the day which he claimed would allow them to work for him as “trainees” on hours that would still let them claim.

Eventually, after a good three or four years, the Inland Revenue and DHSS caught-up with him, which resulted in a lot of current and former “trainees” being hauled-in for very unpleasant interviews under caution by both bodies (they were not merged at that point) and prolonged investigation which meant having to live under threat of prosecution for benefit fraud and/or tax evasion for several years.

Of course Mr Modfather skipped town at the first opportunity and has not been heard of since in these parts.

Some time later the industry-wide rules on documentation/paperwork that caused vast amounts of duplication for even the most mundane bit of info for each and every rig/oilfield installation were changed in ways that probably reduced the value/viability of this kind of scam.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Just like Walts from the military, none of these people claim to have a Desmond from East Anglia, it’s always Oxford or SAS…

There was one busted recently on one of the RAMC sites, this particular Walt, who was in his twenties, had a medal bar on with a mix of WWI and WWII medals.

 

[nogojones]

He pretended to have a top class degree and high flying career with Nike. He’s just a regular grifter.

Doesn't everyones CV read like this?

 

[DaveCinzano]

There was one busted recently on one of the RAMC sites, this particular Walt, who was in his twenties, had a medal bar on with a mix of WWI and WWII medals.

 

[Cloo]

I think with increased international hiring/remote work we'll see a lot more of these kinds of things going on, as they'll always be able to find someone who's not got wind of the scam.

 

[Elpenor]

I feel for these people. Sold a dream but behind the curtain there was no Wizard.