[HN Gopher] An elaborate con that tricked dozens into working fo... ___________________________________________________________________ An elaborate con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency Author : bhartzer Score : 190 points Date : 2022-02-21 18:14 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com) | PaulKeeble wrote: | The lack of minimum wage is a bit of a giveaway, no one should be | taking a job that doesn't at least meet that minimum legal | requirement its clearly illegal without one. | ilikeitdark wrote: | A similar thing actually happened to me, by a friend of a friend | (although we lived in different countries). He was making an | adult film that was supposed to be for a big platform. Hired | everyone (including some big names), rented condos, film | equipment, paid for flights (convinced a producer to front the | money for some of it). At the end of the week long shoot he tried | disappearing without paying for anything or anyone. And there was | no platform involved, it was all made up. And my life was | threatened by a few of the people he had "hired" because they | thought I knew the guy (although I really didn't and he ripped me | off too). This guy Ali sounds like the same kinda psychopath. | system2 wrote: | Why does this surprise anyone? These companies exist in LA | everywhere. Checkout | | https://coalitiontechnologies.com/who-we-are | | None of the cartoon characters are real humans, no portfolio, no | bio, just a name (not even a damn last name) and a "business | title". They hire free people from craigslist and "interview" | them on YouTube: | | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=coalition+techn... | | They hire people, promise the same things. They quit after a week | or so. They make companies sign ridiculous contracts and never | deliver either. | | Ali is not guilty, marketing is purely scam these days, he is | just following the trend. | Hokusai wrote: | > Ali is not guilty, marketing is purely scam these days, he is | just following the trend. | | Following criminals is not a valid justification in front of a | jury. Crime is a common occurrence, it does not make it not | crime. Everybody is the same is just an excuse for criminals to | not feel guilty about their acts. | kahrl wrote: | "BUT EVERYBODY ELSE WAS DOING IT!" - 6 year old me. | AussieWog93 wrote: | There is legal precedent for this, at least in Australia. | | If you are fired for doing something wrong that others are | also doing (and they're not fired for it), you have a case | for an unfair dismissal suit [1]. | | I'm sure it applies elsewhere too. | | [1] IANAL | [deleted] | system2 wrote: | True, I am of course not supporting Ali, but singling him out | as if he created a scheme on his own is wrong. I can easily | bet my one month salary on 99% of marketing companies out | there doing the same. | | I know it from personal experience because I had to work with | many from Los Angeles thru my clients. All deception and | lies. | | Ali said 6 months commission and no client signed. Does he | owe money? No. Did he lie? Yes, because he created fake | profiles and lied about his resume as well as his company | portfolio. Every marketing company does the same without an | exception. | gkoberger wrote: | I mean, that's a bet I'll take. Everyone exaggerates a bit, | but there's no way you really believe 99 out of 100 | marketing companies are making up fake coworkers and flat- | out lying about their entire portfolio. | system2 wrote: | Probably a little exaggerated, make it 90%. Maybe top 1% | is doing it right. Small / medium marketing companies are | not telling the truth ever. Show me some marketing | companies and I can spot their lies within minutes for | you. I am very used to it. | dj_mc_merlin wrote: | You are exaggerating.. but not too far off. Having | experience with small marketing agencies (which are very | often actually just one dude), the amount of "creativity" | in their "strategies" is insane, and probably criminal. | And yes, they all claim everybody else is doing it too. | hammock wrote: | You are getting downvoted to pieces, but working in the | industry myself you are closer to the truth than others | want to believe. | bsedlm wrote: | He fooled a whole bunch of people, just because lots of other | people are going around scamming anybody they can does not in | any way make any of them any less guilty. | system2 wrote: | I think I should write sarcasm with big letters before | posting anything on an online platform. | bsedlm wrote: | you can also use a "/sarcasm" closing tag | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Actually, that Coalition Technologies company was | interesting. Maybe the summation line was a bit over-the | top. | | Yeah, the Web has allowed shops that used to be no more | than kiosks in the corridors of a dying mall, to front like | they are megacorps. | | Nothing new (as was pointed out), but it's a lot easier to | do, these days, than it used to be. | | This guy probably could have pulled it off, if he had kept | his scope small. | | That's what tends to kill a lot of cons; they get too big, | where they allow themselves to be put into a "put up or | shut up" situation. | | Sort of reminds me of the movie _The Producers_. | | I often read about successful companies that started off as | spit-and-baling-wire facades. | gkoberger wrote: | > Ali is not guilty, marketing is purely scam these days, he is | just following the trend. | | Having generic stock art on your about page isn't great, but | it's a fine line. | | Making up coworkers, stealing work and saying it's your own, | not paying people, etc. That's not "marketing", and I really | hope you don't believe that. | hammock wrote: | Employee numbers are routinely inflated and employee pages on | websites etc are "forgotten to be updated" during downturns. | | Stealing work is a routinely done by marketing agencies and | their employees.. directly and indirectly (look up the real | Allstate Mayhem story if you can find it- it was originally | pitched to a different insurance company, not used, ripped | off and the new agency that "created" it won't actually allow | Allstate to do any Mayhem work with any other agency by | contract - which is an unprecedented stipulation (typically | agency work rights are reserved by the client). | | As for not paying people, there is a reason "fuck you pay me" | is a thing. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | That reminds me of Mike Monteiro's famous Meetup talk: | https://vimeo.com/22053820 | convolvatron wrote: | the first business venture i worked for had a theatre for | giving presentations. on the wall of the theater was a 20 | story building, all mirrored glass, framed against the sky | with the company logo. it looked a little different than the | two story Mountain View industrial park build we were in. | | was that fraud? not really. was that marketing? it certainly | was. but it was clearly a lie. was that just a question of | degree? | kkjjkgjjgg wrote: | Why do they exist? In the hopes that eventually it could work? | sireat wrote: | What I do not understand how could an enterprise be so | incompetent not to attract any clients in 6 months? | | You have 20-30 very motivated sales people working on landing | clients for 6 months, there have to be some sales. | | Or did this not-quite an agency actually land some real clients | and was unable to deliver? | itronitron wrote: | I doubt the agency landed any real clients as the companies Ali | claimed to have access to through personal connections and past | experience likely stick with vetted design agencies and | probably have fairly extensive contract procedures. If Ali had | focused on low to mid-tier clients they may have been able to | land some contracts, my two cents. | zauguin wrote: | I would expect that the sales people did focus on mid-tier | clients. After all, if they would have approached high-tier | clients Ali supposedly had connections with I would expect | the responses to show that this isn't real. | SkipperCat wrote: | This is so similar to the Anna Sorokin scam (now famous via | Netflix). I think the Insta culture has made people so hungry for | the image of success that they'll do anything to achieve it. | | Taking that a step further, I do wonder if crimes like this will | get public sentiment behind removing anonymity from the Internet. | There's plenty of reasons to keep people's privacy. But society | will only tolerate so much criminal behavior before handing over | their freedom for order. | blowski wrote: | Such scams have always been true for whatever reason. Ancient | Rome had specific laws around pretending to be other people, | suggesting it was a big problem 2000 years ago. If this is used | to justify removing anonymity from the internet, I doubt it | will be the real motivation for those pushing it. | tmnvix wrote: | God forbid the public see the anonymous nature of business | entities as the problem here - at least when seeking justice. | | > The tribunal order was made against the company, not against | Ali Ayad as an individual. So if Madbird was insolvent, like | Ali said, there was no way the tribunal could force it to pay | any of the owed wages. | autoexec wrote: | Exactly, corporations keep telling us they are people, but | somehow they never face the kinds of consequences that actual | people do. That said, I'd be surprised if there wasn't | something Ali Ayad could be charged with directly. | bsder wrote: | That doesn't fly in California. Back wages are one of the few | things that officers of a company can be found personally | liable for. | shakna wrote: | > But society will only tolerate so much criminal behavior | before handing over their freedom for order. | | There's already movement to remove this [0], whether or not | it's approved by the public, and whether or not it's deemed to | actually be helpful at all by the experts in the field. | | [0] https://www.theguardian.com/australia- | news/2021/nov/28/coali... | ethbr0 wrote: | > _so hungry for the image of success that they 'll do anything | to achieve it_ | | I'd flip that sideways a bit and say that it's normalized the | achievement of success (that is, the end rewards) to consumers | / viewers, while omitting the effort to get there, to such a | degree that no one thinks to look for or ask "How?" | | Everything in the BBC article was pretty trivially verifiable. | But most people didn't. That feels wrong. | nerdawson wrote: | > Everything in the BBC article was pretty trivially | verifiable. But most people didn't. That feels wrong. | | 90k Instagram followers is all the verification most people | need. | bunana wrote: | > Everything in the BBC article was pretty trivially | verifiable. But most people didn't. That feels wrong. | | I'm shocked that apparently no one looked up the supposed | Madbird office (edit: except for Gemma, who had been working | there already for two weeks!). Has covid really made people | so comfortable working at home to the point where they don't | care to know where their employer's physical office is? | Especially for the people who were "hired" abroad. In my | mind, I would be extra careful to audit a potential employer | if they're based in a different country than where I live. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | To be blunt to people who were swindled were either dumb or | naieve. | | they learned a valuable lesson. | | I'm not sure if we need to put safety guards on every possible | bad thing that can happen in the world | [deleted] | gkoberger wrote: | The Tinder Swindler on Netflix is another example of this. | Theranos isn't far off, either, although it was more | "legitimate". | | I disagree with your last paragraph, though. These weren't | "anonymous" people, they were liars (often using their real | identities and definitely using their real faces). There have | been con artists for decades. | | These people aren't trying to steal money and sneak off into | the darkness. They're trying to brute force their way into | their version of success, where their actual real identities | are attached. | lazide wrote: | Fake it until you make it is incredibly toxic for everyone - | it gets people in over their heads in situations they have no | experience for, it convinces folks to scam everyone around | them, and it causes mental health issues for everyone as they | can't figure out if they should be more or less delusional | than others. | | It's about time for some actual 'experience and | responsibility matter' to come back - but it will have to get | worse before it gets better, and hopefully we don't get stuck | in the 'scam zone' | beaconstudios wrote: | This is just the extreme end of "fake it till you make it" hustle | culture that's also extremely prevalent in startup culture. | Presumably this guy thought "I'll hire a bunch of people for free | then we'll get contracts then I'll have the money to pay them | (assuming I don't run off with the money)". | | Somewhat related, one of the things that made me stop freelancing | online when I was a teenager was the number of people who upon | job completion would ask me to wait until they had the money to | pay, or try to get out of paying entirely. | subpixel wrote: | I had a company try to get net 60 terms _for a deposit_. That | was the last time we spoke. | beaconstudios wrote: | That rather defeats the purpose of a deposit! | hammock wrote: | People are jumping to conclusions that this was some sort of | criminal enterprise. The article makes no claims of criminal | activity. There are clearly fibs - none though that are | particularly unique in the design agency world. Perhaps there | is some actual criminal fraud here, but the case is not laid | out specifically. | | The fact is all these "jobfished" people signed up willingly | for a job that was purely commission-based, and had the agency | actually been able to attract a paying client in the first six | months, who is to say Ali wouldn't have made good on his | promises to hire people on salary, etc.? | | I know I'm going to be downvoted for this comment, but I wanted | to lay out a contrarian point of view that doesn't just | immediately jump on the bandwagon of the current Anna | Sorokin/Tinder Swindler zeitgeist. | beaconstudios wrote: | It's more complicated than just "did he commit crime" (which | he did, in terms of employment - you can't pay people PS0 for | full time work in the UK). His actions were fraudulent in | terms of faking so many aspects of the company and his own | profile, and he misled people by guaranteeing an income at | the end of the probation. He was both criminal and | manipulative but I'm sure in his mind he was just working on | his grindset or whatever excuse internet hustlers use for | ripping people off these days. | TigeriusKirk wrote: | The problem here is there is no difference to the victim. | They were promised money the hiring party did not have and | did not deliver. From the worker's viewpoint, they've been | cheated of their wages regardless of intent. | hammock wrote: | What money were they promised? The article I read said they | were hired on commission and zero clients were won. | awb wrote: | > There are clearly fibs - none though that are particularly | unique in the design agency world | | I ran a legit design agency and none of this is common. And | it goes well beyond a fib. | | * Stealing portfolio samples (copyright infringement / IP | theft & fraud) | | * Creating fake employee profiles and potentially | impersonating these fake employees (fraud) | | * Hiring people on a $0 base salary (illegal hiring practice) | | At best he didn't know he was breaking the law, at the worst | he was. | CPLX wrote: | It almost certainly meets the test for fraud. In the UK | that's defined as making a dishonest representation for your | own advantage or to cause another a loss. Hard to see how | this doesn't squarely fit that description. | hammock wrote: | Why, then, do you think the word "fraud" appears nowhere in | the article? | beaconstudios wrote: | Journalists will, as a rule, not make explicit | accusations that could bring libel/defamation suits. | hammock wrote: | Isn't this reasoning what the word "alleged" is for? Also | not found in the article. | beaconstudios wrote: | Not if allegations have not yet been raised. | | You seem very hung up on the wording of this article. Is | fraud not a crime unless it's called out by a journalist? | ceres wrote: | Because the BBC is a media company not a law firm or | court of law. Maybe because he hasn't been charged | ...yet. In any case you shouldn't decide the innocence or | guilt of someone based on a news article. | rwmj wrote: | Just a lawyer at the BBC being cautious about attracting | an unnecessary lawsuit. | ellen364 wrote: | The company probably broke minimum wage law. And might owe | employer's national insurance contributions to HMRC (the tax | office). That might sound strange because the employees | weren't paid. But if the company was legally obliged to pay | minimum wage, I'd guess they were also legally obliged to pay | employer taxes. | | Having said that, the article noted that HMRC's minimum wage | enforcement team have already been involved and recovered | just PS29.70. Hopefully they're still working on it. | | Edit: An employment tribunal ruled that three employees are | collectively owed PS19,000, so minimum wage is somewhat being | enforced. But the company doesn't have any money to pay them. | It's a mess. | MattGaiser wrote: | Luring people to work for you under false pretenses should be | considered criminal fraud. They gave up other jobs and | opportunities for this one. It directly impacted their | economic security. | | If you put fake executives into an investment document with | fake work samples and fake client claims, that would | definitely be considered criminal fraud. | mmaunder wrote: | Agreed re the cultural phenomenon. I think one of the things | that makes people vulnerable to this is that it's hard to "ask | for the sale" and by extension, to ask for payment ahead of | time, or even on time, when you're starting out. | | Most of us have this inner sense of "How dare I?" ask for | money. Even when it's earned and perfectly honest or in direct | payment for your directly contributed labor. | | This is what makes raising money hard and it's what makes sales | hard. And it is what allows people like this to take advantage | of those who work hard without paying them for a surprisingly | long time. | api wrote: | Why isn't this a crime? Isn't it the wage theft equivalent of | check kiting? | beaconstudios wrote: | This is a crime. The only real question is whether Ali will | get prosecuted - which, given that he defrauded employees | rather than investors, I rather doubt. | lazide wrote: | It probably is a crime, and maybe it will get looked into due | to this article. It is weird the article is being so | circumspect about it. | chrisma0 wrote: | That first instagram photo of Ali has almost a surreal nature to | it. Is it just me or did they somehow photoshop his features to | be smaller and his face bigger?! | AussieWog93 wrote: | A fair few people acting as if this is a new thing, but I'm not | so sure. I had a few old coworkers talk about crazy shit like | this that happened in the 90s/00s. | duxup wrote: | > But when we got hold of the GQ issue and opened it to page 63, | the photo of Ali wasn't there. It was an advert for a watch. Ali | Ayad had never modelled for Massimo Dutti, and he had never been | featured in British GQ. | | That's an impressive level of detail, faking a magazine ad. | itronitron wrote: | I'm hoping someone can do a photoshop analysis of the first | picture of Ali in the article (the one in the cafe). The | proportions in the face seemed a bit off and rather dissimilar | to the image from the video interview. | muzani wrote: | That's why he had to work 17 hours/day. | laurent92 wrote: | Is it just about inserting a sheet of paper with a good quality | photo at page 63? | duxup wrote: | Good photo on paper that looks convincing (or good | photoshopping). | | Either way that's an interesting effort. | matsemann wrote: | If photoshop it's quite good, not immediately obvious using | image forensic tools. So maybe became quite a good designer | after making all those fake stuff..? Hehe. | | Reminds me of kids trying to cheat a test by writing down | all answers, only to not have to use that cheat sheet | because they ended up accidentally studying for the test by | making the sheet. | TheOtherHobbes wrote: | It's quite near the production values of a real fashion ad. | Definitely shot by someone with experience and some skill - | probably another victim. | | Given the styling and the obsession with appearances, I'd | guess this character is a plain old narcissist. His only | real skill is superficial charm. There's no real business | ability there, or even much serious interest in running a | real business. | | But being seen to be a CEO and thought leader - _that_ will | appeal to him. | | It's exactly the kind of love bombing -> charm -> attention | seeking -> future faking -> increasingly outrageous lies -> | reality of outright abuse sequence you'd expect. | | My guess is he lacks any remorse, because he's likely | incapable of it. And he'll be lining up some more victims | in some other scheme. | | A lot of this is unquestionably criminal and illegal, but | it's hard to get the police interested in a case like this. | And even if the victims group together and take him to | small claims he'll find some way not to pay them. | KaoruAoiShiho wrote: | Isn't superficial charm business ability. And the company | was close to being successful no? | | Like if I were a couple of tech founders in YC I'd be | trying to get this guy to be my CEO. | llamataboot wrote: | Perhaps that's a comment on the current state of | "business" and funding and not quite the endorsement you | make it out to be | itronitron wrote: | I look forward to his TED talk. | janekm wrote: | I imagine he paid (or, perhaps, didn't pay) a photoshop artist | on fiver... | hammock wrote: | Clever for sure. Or, just another fake/photoshopped Instagram | post of millions. | 0898 wrote: | The article is a bit laboured. "This profile photo wasn't real. | And this profile wasn't real. And the company wasn't real! And | the pitch documents were stolen!" | | We get it - it was a fake company. | Traster wrote: | The BBC is not a top tier organisation for original reporting. | Just a couple of weeks ago they basically got taken in by a | crypto-bro who claimed to have made millions (what he didn't | claim was that he made those millions by scamming people). They | published a teaser article in the morning to boost their | exclusive report on TV in the evening. Basically an hour after | posting the teaser article they got called out on their | naivete, and pulled the tv programme. citation: | https://www.cityam.com/bbc-pulls-crypto-documentary-amid-sca... | arrakis2021 wrote: | You're right it reads like it's trying to be the next Theranos | expose | arcastroe wrote: | Sorry if I missed it, but we're there any criminal charges filed? | Or was all of this legal? | rwmj wrote: | The UK police have essentially given up on fraud[1]. The amount | of fraud and scams going on here at the moment is incredible. | It would be expensive and difficult for the individual | contractors to sue him, I expect most of them have "moved on". | | [1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/feb/20/online- | victim-... quote: Fraud now makes up 42% of all crime and only | one in 700 fraud cases resulted in a conviction in 2019. | well_i_guess wrote: | Is this the effect that we're better aware of fraud and the | like or is it that society is increasingly failing to | prosecute crime? I feel as though we're in a strange spiral | where criminality is increasingly forgiven even in cases it | shouldn't be due to the ineptitude of government. I've talked | to many, many people who are of the view that society is no | longer just, not because of undue prosecution, but because of | no prosecution. | | I'll admit, I was swayed by the arguments of certain protests | a couple years ago, but it seems like a deeper law/order | reaction is brewing after the downstream effects of the | policies and attitudes have come into play. | rwmj wrote: | There's no mystery about it, the UK government has | aggressively cut funding to the police and criminal justice | system. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/def | ault/file... | awb wrote: | The article implies that the scam never made any money which is | perhaps just as shocking as the con itself. | | I ran a real web agency and clients almost never asked for | references and were happy to pay up to 50% of a 5-figure project | total upfront to get started, even from remote or overseas | clients that I never met in person who found me through SEO. | | Crazy that they couldn't land even 1 contract with whatever | stolen portfolio examples they desired. | desireco42 wrote: | It is really weird that they didn't start making a ton of money | from all the energy and work people did. This guy must be some | kind of sociopath to do this to people, it was easy to make | this work even if it started as a scam. | itronitron wrote: | Very weird to hire people to do work, and especially convincing | them to leave their current job, when you don't have any work | that needs to be done. | | Having said that, a variant of this type of behavior is not | uncommon in large organizations where 'go-getters' can self- | manifest by creating chatter and finding underlings. But in | that case there is already a revenue flow to support time and | attention. | hammock wrote: | >Very weird to hire people to do work, and especially | convincing them to leave their current job, when you don't | have any work that needs to be done. | | Spec work and pitch work are very much a thing. As | counterintuitive or infuriating as it may seem, having no | paying clients doesn't mean there is no work to be done, in | the agency world. | smcl wrote: | I read this story when I woke up earlier today so I was a | little bleary-eyed and may have missed something, but I don't | know how accurate that is. We know people didn't get _paid_ but | idk if we can be certain the company didn 't get any money | whatsoever. | awb wrote: | I based the assumption off of this anecdote: | | > But no deals were ever finalised. By February 2021, not a | single client contract had been signed. | smorgusofborg wrote: | Yeah, but there's no reason to think some weren't stacking | up on his desk and managing an agency successfully working | average contracts wasn't what he was after. | awb wrote: | Right, but the point remains that the company made no | money. It's a lot of effort to do what he did and to not | sign 1 contract especially as employee's 6mo paychecks | were coming up is still surprising to me. | smcl wrote: | So I read this too but it sounded like it was based on | accounts from employees BBC could get hold of. I guess | it's possible it's true but I find it hard to believe | such a business could exist for a couple of months with | absolutely no sales whatsoever. | alx__ wrote: | Yeah I'm having a hard time believing it wasn't about money. | Maybe he was already decently wealthy and just wanted to role | play as a successful creative director? | | For the folks who got tricked I feel bad for them. That's a | rough way to learn the lesson to be very suspicious of | commission based work. It's usually a losing situation | lordnacho wrote: | The article says they hired sales people as well. Maybe that | was the plan? Use "credit" to get the product and the buyers, | ball gets rolling, zero to one done. | | But it seems a bit nuts too. It actually takes effort to run a | business with a bunch of people, and more if you have to | remember all the lies you told each person. | | Perhaps what it really says is that success appears so | superficial these days, a random chancer thought he was close | enough to having all the pieces that he gave it a shot. It's | only a few steps away from "this equity will be worth a million | in 4 years". ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-02-21 23:00 UTC)