
Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup - davidkhess
https://medium.com/@PennyKim/i-got-scammed-by-a-silicon-valley-startup-574ced8acdff#.hkgnuhiny
======
Animats
The fake wire transfer receipt is fraud. That's a criminal offense. Have a
talk with the local DA. California has a large prison system, with cell space
available.

I've never heard of a startup going that far.

~~~
TheActuallyer
+1 . Talk to DA. I wonder if there is any lawyer who would do pro bono

~~~
brianwawok
Pro bono work is usually to take someone with limited money OUT of a bad
situation, for example help abused foster kids petition for being placed in a
new foster home, or help an illegal immigrant from being deported with their
children.. not "punish a CEO committing fraud to people earning 6 figure
salaries".

On the other hand, the right government contact (police? employment? ) will be
happy to go after the scammer for "free".

~~~
_asummers
Now that you mention it, is it even allowed that someone outside the DAs
office try criminal cases? The DA is the legal representative of the state in
that case, and I don't know if someone else can just step in there.

~~~
alexbock
The concept of "private prosecution" exists, but my understanding is that it's
not usually practiced (anymore). Some states prohibit it completely, and of
those that do allow it some judicial authority is still usually required to
sign off on it before it can proceed.

------
GuiA
Welcome to the club. It's pretty much a rite of passage here to spend some
time with a psychopath VC, a completely self absorbed CTO with a rich investor
dad that fuels his fantasies, or an idiotic CEO with an ego problem, and to
pay the price for it (just time if you're lucky, time+money if you're not).

I've encountered this myself several times (down to the CEO using hire fast
fire fast as a mantra), and judging from my friends' stories, most people have
or will. When there are large amounts of money at stake, I guess it makes
sense for charlatans and sharks to flock.

There are very few ways to tell accurately from the outset at first who's
going to screw you over - I've heard horror stories of the sort from friends
at startups backed by high profile entities like YC, famous startups that are
often in the media for being "the best places to work at", companies with
celebrity founders who have reputations for being "the nicest guys in the
world", etc.

It's the kind of thing that you can only learn through a few painful
experiences, I think. You do learn your lessons: never pay in advance for
anything, don't put your own savings or core livelihood on the line for
someone else's dreams, get everything in writing, talk to former employees of
a company/colleagues of a founder before getting involved, never ever assume
that what you have is anything more than an employer/employee relationship,
etc.

I have to say that I'm impressed by how the poster handled it - keeping
documentation, filing wage claims, etc. - the only thing she could have done
better was not staying on so long when she wasn't getting paid, but it's an
understandable mistake when you're in the moment.

I for one am glad I learned my lessons at 22 rather than at 45 with a family
to care for and a mortgage to pay. The upside is that there are plenty of
genuinely nice, passionate people - when you find them, stay close to them.

~~~
GuiA
Outside of the edit window for my comment, but wanted to add: the H1B
situation sounds fishy as hell. 8 H1Bs costs a lot of money, which the company
does not seem to abound with.

It seems like something weird might be going on here - if the founders are
willing to forge receipts and lie about the company, it might not be beyond
them to hold on to passports or some such for "immigration reasons", which
would then explained the unwavering loyalty. If something like that is going
on, I hope the devs get out of it unburned.

~~~
gcb0
here how it happens:

a company, that is not really a company, keeps applying for tons of h1b. they
usually have some title like consulting.

they get the h1b and don't even bring the programmers from India. they become
"visa holders" companies.

the h1b's then start to look for work on their own, or the holder. and once
the programmer is hired, the visa holder company gets paid, take 70% (or 60%
if the programmer found the position themselves).

and this is how most h1b contractors that work on Google and such live. they
will endure it for the 10 years the us forces them to stay as h1b. always
trying to get transferred to the hiring company directly, and almost always
failing.

the final company pays much more for a contractor via a visa holder, but they
have the benefit of paying it via a small consulting company, so it won't show
up as head count for the investors. everyone but the programmer wins.

~~~
20yrs_no_equity
Never have I seen this laid out before like this, and so I thank you for that!
I think it's a real tragedy that we can't just have a rational Visa system-
you get an offer from a company, then you should be able to get a work visa.
Work visas continue for as long as you are employed plus one year. That gives
you a year to get a new job.

This is how you attract the best and the brightest and this is what america
needs.

~~~
fapjacks
I really dig your .plan!

------
uiri
I think the title should be changed back. The author glosses over the single,
real biggest red flag:

She never received any paystubs and the company was late on payroll as of
before she was hired

I have never, ever been paid without either a paystub (as an employee) or
generating an invoice which the business then paid (as a freelancer). The
outright refusal to share how they arrived at the figure on her cashier's
cheque should have sent her looking for a new job in the Bay Area or back to
Texas.

The real lesson from this story is to always have a backup plan when making a
big move: what do you do if you arrive and there is no job/no money? what do
you do if you arrive and there is no apartment/room/house/etc.? Scammers exist
and there is only so much you can do from a distance to avoid them.

~~~
jomamaxx
This is not a huge flag. When a company starts up, it's difficult for them to
get the money operating as per regular.

He got paid - that's what matters.

The paystub is a minor thing/

~~~
snowwrestler
If a company can't produce a paystub with a paycheck, I doubt that they are
handling accounting and taxes properly.

Paystubs don't need to come from ADP. They can be typed up or even hand-
written if you want. But they demonstrate, and record, that the company is
fulfilling its legal obligations as an employer, and give the employee the
information the employee needs to fulfill their legal obligations as a
taxpayer.

~~~
e28eta
I wonder how this will play out in April. I seriously doubt the company is
properly withholding & paying the payroll taxes. I guess it's not even clear
whether or not they'll be filing a W2 for her.

------
8KjRu5VAAeMBIZm
I've been burned repeatedly by startups recruiting me for one role which
matches my experience/skillset, then after a month or so radically changing
the role to one which I'd had no experience with. I get pivoting, I get
needing to be flexible, but why would you hire someone skilled in networking
operations and four weeks later decide that person need to design/develop your
Windows application instead?

I've always been paid, however I now check to see if startups have actually
filed the SEC paperwork when they claim to have raised a round, and verify
with the investors they claim to have backing from that they've actually
invested in the company. One startup I worked for lead the employees to
believe we had a solid 18 month runway, when in fact the founders were
covering payroll from home equity lines of credit. They didn't actually close
the round until a year after most of the initial employees left as payroll
became erratic.

Another startup I worked for on the basis of a handshake...never do that.
After a year of developing the company's MVP the founder formalized the
structure and equity of the company, cutting the four early employees out as
co–founders and reducing our equity from 2% to 0.5%. As were were all working
on handshakes, none of us had legally committed to working for him, so we all
walked away. He lost the MVP since I had the only copy.

The last startup I worked for (and will ever work for), I was recruited by the
CEO to come in and build a mixed-discipline technical team in a supporting
role. Within a month it became fairly clear that I'd been hired over the
objections of pretty much the entire management team, which had I known I
wouldn't have taken the role. I was clearly pegged as "a bad hire" which would
not have happened had anyone I'd interviewed with spoke up.

Throwaway account…

~~~
s3b
> verify with the investors they claim to have backing from that they've
> actually invested in the company.

I'm curious, how would you go about doing this?

~~~
8KjRu5VAAeMBIZm
As mooreds wrote, I'd start with Edgar and the SEC. I'd also check state
records (i.e. are they a Delaware C corp? I should be able to pull public
information about the filing, same for most states at varying levels of
difficulty).

I used to get annoyed at all of the chest-beating press releases about how
much money a company had raised until I realized it was a form of external
validation. None of the companies which burned me on equity/funding issues
wanted to talk publicly about their fundraising rounds, it was always "we're
going to a do a press release, it's just not the right time now". If you
publicly state "We raise a $2.5MM Series A from the following investors" I can
go out and verify that.

Bonus story: a "company" recruited me hard to be their CTO. Some wining and
dining. But a lot of handwaving about the business model and where the funding
was sourced from. The founders wanted me to bring their "vision" of social
e-commerce to market utilising a proprietary algorithm which would be
disclosed to me only upon taking the role. When pressed about corporate
structure and funding they eventually disclosed that funding was coming in the
form of personal checks written to cover bills as they came in, by the
domestic partner of one of the founders. No C Corp, not even an LLC. I
declined.

------
lemonghost
[https://www.linkedin.com/company/jobsonic](https://www.linkedin.com/company/jobsonic)
?

~~~
bvanslyke
Yep. Looks like it's now called "1for.one". Their CEO has a stock photo on
LinkedIn and owned a mining corp.

~~~
lemonghost
I think 1for.one is the old name, then they changed it to jobsonic and, more
recently, to wrkriot.com.

~~~
ramblenode
Wow, the author's description "anti-SEO name" doesn't quite do these justice.
"1for.one" is cringey but "wrkriot.com" is just straight VC repellent.

~~~
ChristopherE
Not disputing you, but why is WrkRiot so repellent? It's unique and
recognizable. I'll admit that "Riot" is just weird, but is that the main
reason?

(not trolling, I'm serious)

~~~
tedmiston
In general misspellings are considered bad for SEO because search engines
suggest correcting their name to something else. I'm not sure whether that
applies here but I have seen it for startups that vowel drop weirdly, etc.

~~~
laur624
Thank you for the SEO-specific reply. I was curious about that aspect,
opinions on professionalism aside.

------
harwoodleon
Penny, if you do end up reading the comments on here, be sure of a few things:

You have generated more traffic to their site than Jess ever will.

You are not alone in your experiences.

You are obviously a great professional and you will probably do well.

You have shamed the company into probable closure (which is a good thing) as
the guy would get worse with more money and bigger teams.

For everyone involved in a startup there are huge risks. Most of the risks are
borne by the founders, they get handsomely rewarded if things go well.

But they often don't. I wish the startup community would take heed at this
great story and be more honest about the risks, instead of following the hype
train.

Macho ego bullshit is to blame for a lot of wasted effort.

But it's really good to hear that you are back with your cat.

~~~
novaleaf
A rant: I hate the "in crowd" subtext that goes on with all these postmortem
posts.

People in-the-know know what company and people are being discussed in these
posts. Accordingly, "I know privileged information." banter is thrown around.

I wish that, for the sake of those outside the loop (me at least), people
either name-names or take the wink-nods to a private message.

This is probably going to be a very unpopular (ie: negative karma) rant, but
those of us outside the SV echo-chamber get hit by this all the time.

~~~
harwoodleon
Hit by it all the time? Where do you live? Vegas?

If the SV echo chamber extends to Texas, you might be right about the club.

She's just being careful! If she has brought the company down by explaining
her position she may get in all sorts of trouble by naming them too.

Lawyers would love to take her down if there's been a lot of money creamed.
He'll probably use this HN thread to blame her for his company failure.

------
maceo
Wage theft causes American workers to lose an estimated $50 billion dollars
per year.

Usually low-income workers, many of whom are not in a social class where
they're friends with a smart lawyer, are the victims.

This is just the SV flavor of what millions of American workers suffer from
year-round.

------
d0100
"About a month in, our interim leader returned to Korea, and a woman was
brought in who had worked at several video game companies. She used to know
our CEO’s in college. She was kind, thoughtful, and attentive. I knew the
company would eat her alive.

After our boss departed, I took over a few of his duties. One of them was
“viral marketer.” I was now creating ad campaigns on Facebook in an attempt to
bring monthly active users to the site.

I had no training. I was acting on one hunch and instinct after another. Yet,
I was good.

A month or two passed without incident, and then we lost a team member. Unable
to withstand the workload and the move, she left to be with her boyfriend. We
all made fun of her for it."

Seems like the "other side of the story" from Tess. Doesn't make her look any
better...

[http://theunderemployedlife.com/working-start-almost-
killed-...](http://theunderemployedlife.com/working-start-almost-killed-part-
one-2/)

~~~
pascalmemories
CAREFUL! That link has a boobytrapped payload that roots Android devices and
installs malware (latest Android 6.0 device). Probably a dodgy ad network
injecting it.

Best visit with noscript enabled.

~~~
TechieKid
Well, what if we already opened the link on a 6.0 Android device? Can I check
in some manner whether it's infected or do I just have to treat it as
untrustworthy and trash it?

~~~
morgosmaci
You would have to download the app they spammed with vibrates and let it
install.

~~~
TechieKid
Thanks for the reply! This isn't very clear to me. I actually opened the link
in a new tab with Firefox for Android, had Firefox ask me for permission to
access my camera and mike(?), denied those and closed the tab as I read
pascalmemories' comment i.e. I never actually saw the content, so "you would
have to download the app they spammed with vibrates" doesn't mean anything to
me. Perhaps that's a good thing? :)

I've turned off the phone for now, and it's not 6.0, rather it's 6.x (up to
date with August 2016 patches IIRC), not sure if that makes a difference. I'm
mostly worried about the malware being a drive-by download/infection.

~~~
pascalmemories
I was browsing in Chrome with a brand new phone which thankfully did not have
anything on it. Despite clearing all the app data (which normally cleans out
browse-by if it's just annoying page javascript in my experience) the damn
vibrate, play noises and throw multiple pop-ups just kept on coming and would
not let me close them.

I had to resort to a factory wipe to clean it; it was not a great deal since
it was a phone I'd literally today just taken out the box, but if it had been
something I had data on and used for a while, it would have been a serious
PITA.

I suspect the ad network malware pumper saw the visit spike and decided the
traffic volume warranted an exploit delivery instead of their usual junk ad
content.

~~~
TechieKid
So, if I start my phone and browse normally, and don't see, hear, or feel any
popups, noises, or vibrations, I'm good? And perhaps I should clear out my
Firefox app data? I shut it down because you mentioned root and malware, and
if the malware can root a device, it probably can hide itself pretty well and
make it impossible to get it out.

------
scottmf
What's crazy to me is the company didn't expect anyone to take their story
public. Not even the woman in _marketing_.

I hope you guys continue to expose fraudulent startups and CEOs like this. It
really is a service to us all.

------
mkoryak
I once worked for a startup here in boston that didn't pay me for a few months
until I threatened to file a wage claim (did't work) and to quit (worked). I
got the hell out of there as soon I got paid - some of my coworkers weren't so
lucky.

It seems crazy to me now that I wound up in such a situation, but what it is
happening to you, it is usually accompanied by a healthy helping of lies,
misinformation and hope.

It wont happen again. But it was fun getting ~3 months salary in cash and
going to Jordan's to buy furniture with my girlfriend like a gangsta'

~~~
semi-extrinsic
> But it was fun getting ~3 months salary in cash and going to Jordan's to buy
> furniture with my girlfriend like a gangsta'

Fo' shizzle, if I'm ever gonna buy a nailgun, it's gonna be paid in cash.

[https://youtu.be/JDpvkwBBu6U](https://youtu.be/JDpvkwBBu6U)

------
throway29816129
As a cheapo freelancer born and working in a country that ranks quite low in
transparency, trust and justice system ratings, I'm used to getting shafted by
people who hire my services, fail to pay, and leave me with no option to turn
to for help.

But I've to say I'm shocked something like that happens even in Silicon
Valley, and based on other comments here, quite often too. I don't know
whether to cry for my fellow shaftees or laugh at them out of cynical
schadenfreude. All I can ask is please do something to fix it effectively,
because the broken window effect only makes things worse with time.

~~~
ryanSrich
It's just over saturation. Not everyone can work for a reputable, well paying
company. Hopefully with stories like people will become more privy to the
talent shortage myth. It's a money grab that allows startups like this to
survive. If there really was a talent shortage no one in their right mind
would ever work for a shady startup in Silicon Valley where the rent is 3x the
national average.

------
dboreham
Interesting, because I saw a very similar scenario play out at the very first
job I had after college. A coworker's paycheck was delayed then when the check
did arrive it bounced. Coworker complained to CEO. Coworker was then fired. As
a sibling comment says: this kind of thing happens often enough that everyone
has seen it at least once.

Definite bonus points for the fake wire transfer receipts though. Above and
beyond!

------
desdiv
I've dealt with late payroll before and the fear, uncertainty, and stress
really sucked. I was even considering offering the company a 50% haircut on
the wages _that I rightfully earned already_ just so the stress would go away.

Is there any bank or payroll company that offers a wage escrow service? As in,
the company pays X months of wages in advance into a per-employee escrow
account that's FDIC insured, and the employee can log in at any time to verify
its balance.

~~~
pyre
When Target declared bankruptcy and pulled out of Canada, they setup a trust
(or something) to give all employees 4 months of wages. They all got 4 months
of wages, but some stores closed sooner than others, so some people ended up
working for 4 months while others ended up basically getting paid to do
nothing. You might look into what Target used to set this up.

~~~
desdiv
Good for them. Sounds like they had to setup a trust:

>“Therefore, in what we believe is an unprecedented move, Target Corp. is
voluntarily seeking to establish a trust that we will fund with C$70 million.
Those funds are designed to provide nearly all Target Canada employees with a
minimum of 16 weeks of wages and benefits coverage during the wind-down
period.”

[http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/27/target-canada-
severa...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/27/target-canada-
severance_n_6556442.html)

~~~
pyre
From what I understand, at the point they declared bankruptcy they (Target
Canada) didn't have enough money to meet payroll obligations, and the trust
was seeded from Target's US operation. It Target Canada had just been
standalone chain (i.e. no Target USA), then this probably wouldn't have been
possible.

------
foxylad
> The names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

Assuming the writer is as scrupulously honest as they seem to be, how legally
exposed would they be in actually naming names? And assuming they are exposed,
are astute commenters who use clues from the article to reveal the company
also liable?

It seems to me that it would be a HUGE public good to name the names.
Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people
doing this; being able to safely expose them would go a long way to stopping
such scum.

~~~
pyre
They might open themselves up to lawsuits. Even if they will win the lawsuits,
that's a money/time sink to deal with.

~~~
readitmeow
Is it still libel or defamation if it's all true?

~~~
ceejayoz
No, but that's not the point.

Not everyone has $50k and the time to fight a libel/defamation suit.

~~~
readitmeow
True, but the alternative is letting people like this get away just because
they have power and/or money. Tough situation to be in.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Not really. She left enough clues that people on HN could figure it all out
pretty quickly. Seems like a good middle ground to exposing them but
protecting yourself.

------
h4nkoslo
Has there ever been an instance of late payroll (as opposed to eg sales
commission checks being calculated wrong) where the company actually pulled
out of the nosedive? It seems like it's almost always the death knell.

~~~
trcollinson
Absolutely yes, though it depends on the transparency of the rest of the team
really. I have been involved with three companies in my career which pulled
out of this seeming nosedive. One of the companies was going through a really
horrible time. They had just got done releasing software that was horribly
behind schedule which relieved their customers, but it was still stressful.
They were working on settling two law suits. And it was almost Christmas time
(first pay check of December, I remember it well). The owner came in and said
he couldn't make payroll and that he would be able to as soon as a few
customers paid. Everyone was upset. Later that afternoon the CEO's daughter
rolled up in a brand new Subaru which he had bought for her over the weekend.
I was the head of development, my buddy was the head of operations. We walked
the CEO outside and broke the news to his daughter and him that the car was
going back. We took the cash and made payroll. We never allowed the CEO to
make financial decisions again and about 10 months later closed the sale of
the entire business for a windfall profit for him and us. Ultimately everyone
got paid well and everything worked out.

The second place, the C level executives literally didn't know how to
calculate runway and more or less ignored the bank accounts. Checks started to
bounce from the bank accounts two days before the payroll was to be cashed.
The executives freaked out and honestly felt horrible. Payroll bounced but we
warned all of the employees. I was again development manager and the CEO asked
me if I knew anyone who could help. We brought in a friend of mine who is a
consulting turn around expert. We got one of the existing investors to make
payroll, three days late, by signing a personal check. My friend, the turn
around expert, wrangled the books (after not sleeping for numerous days to try
to figure out the financial situation). We turned the company around, and in a
few months had it to a level of profitability it had never seen before.

It is possible to turn things around. Really the biggest problems come when
people aren't honest with themselves and their employees about the situation
they are in. The first CEO in my example had to be honest with himself and
realize he had to spend on his employees before he could spend on his family.
When he relinquished control of the financial decisions and stuck to what he
was good at, the company turned around quickly. The second executive team had
to realize that they were young and inexperienced and needed help. When they
did and asked for it, the company turned around quickly.

~~~
jwdunne
That's an incredible set of stories. What strikes me is the ability and
confidence to take the CEO aside and say no, that's not happening. That sounds
pretty nerve racking.

The things that stick out to me here are how excellent teams took the mantle
and provided radical turn arounds from a trajectory pointing to failure.

Honestly made my day.

~~~
trcollinson
I would say the first time I went through this it was very nerve-racking.
However, the CEO of the first company (which I spoke about in another comment,
the real estate software company) really changed my attitude on working and
being an employee forever. I remember sitting with him at an Applebee's late
at night. We were talking about the downturn of the market and the financial
problems the company had during the time and how scary it was for me as "just
an employee". He said to me, "You're not 'just an employee', you're an
investor in my business. You invest your time, talents, and efforts to make me
succeed. I pay you dividends more regularly but honestly you should never act
as just an employee. If you do amazing work you'll be rewarded just like an
investor, if you act like an investor."

I know what a lot of people will say to that. "No way, you're just an
employee, you won't be treated like an investor." Well, true, if you have that
attitude you won't be treated like an investor. You'll be treated like an
employee. However, if you start acting like an investor, you'll be treated as
one. Ask intelligent questions about the business and its financials. Talk to
the board. Give intelligent and thoughtful advise to help the company. Be an
asset far above the code you write.

If you do that, and then all of the sudden everything starts to nosedive, you
will be in a position to help fix the problem and reap the rewards. You are an
investor, not an employee.

------
kennell
How on earth does a shady, newly founded company with a handful of people
manage to hire 8(!) H-1B workers from China?

I really feel bad for those workers. Essentially they are obeying coding
slaves for the company until they eventually get their green card. They can
not risk being fired, they will not ask for a raise, they can not easily
switch to another job etc. etc.

A native worker like the author is less likely to put up with this kind of BS
for very long.

This is unfair for both the foreign workers and native workers. Cases like
this really show that the H-1B system is a total joke.

~~~
javienegas
Many of JobSonic devs have been foreigner students in the US, that allows them
to work after their MSc is finished.

H1B application (lottery this days) is at the beginning of April, H1Bs granted
visas won't be effective until October of the same year. Most of the JobSonic
devs started in the end of 2015, therefore they are not H1B visa holders,
JobSonic 'probably'(I hope) applied for their H1B visa because they have been
students in the U.S. they have more chances of winning the H1B lottery. If the
won the lottery, their visas won't be valid until October 2016.

There is a quota of 60k H1B per year, and extra 20k for students in U.S.
Universities.

Edit: So their H1B application (Oct 2016) depends on JobSonic well being,
that's why they are not asking about getting paid, because their H1B visas are
not valid yet.

------
albertcbrown
This is Charlie. I met the CEO (not sharing his name, though it is in this
thread) through his brother in law, Jay. Jay worked with me at a prior
company. He was a data scientist and factual. He mentioned his brother in law
came to Silicon Valley to do a startup having made some money as an investment
banker.

As we talked, the CEO stated he is putting in $2M to fund the startup in
November. In December, with $400k or so in the company with the rest coming,
we started to build. We grew steadily till about April with a prototype. At
which point, the CEO kept mentioning money was coming and with a few different
reasons on why it did not arrive.

I bridged May and June. As the stories piled up, I started to ask more pointed
questions. I met Bernie, the lawyer who was real. Bernie has an office with
Montgomery McCracken in NYC. I insisted the CEO to fly twice to NYC to meet
with Bernie and resolve the funding issue. On the last trip, he claimed he got
a $500k loan from his lawyer, Bernie, and his cousin, Tommy. The last payroll
with ADP was made.

I did not find out till the beginning of August that the money for the last
payroll came from one of the employees. I thought there was $500k available
starting July. It became apparent it was not available shortly thereafter.

In July, Penny joined. We went through more stress at the company with the CEO
stating every other week money was coming from a variety of sources – a line
of credit from Mackie Research due to his personal connections, his money
making it over, and different investors. None of it came to pass.

In August, I thought it better to let some of developers go as there was no
funds to pay them and ask the other ones not to come to work until money is in
the bank. An investor did come in that allowed us to make July’s payroll a
month late.

I did not see any of the wire transfer confirmations till later as I was
showed by a couple of the employees. I did not get a confirmation personally.
The team was paid for that wire transfer (July).

In August, I tried to validate his story with his brother in law with no
success. I was not able to corroborate any of his story after contacting his
educational institution and prior institutional employer. This lack of trust
came to a head a week ago and we parted ways.

The current story from the CEO right now is that the team will get paid for
August on Monday to Wednesday this week. I have no idea if it is true.

To this day, I don’t understand the game plan from the CEO. Why accelerate
into a brick wall? None of it makes sense.

I am currently out the bridge, expenses, August office rent and back pay.

It never occurred to me, till too late, that somebody would misrepresent so
much of his story. For being naïve and believing in the dream, I am truly
sorry.

~~~
ryuker16
ceo is probaly a con man or an idiot rich guy who inherited his money. Do a
background check on him or search his name to see if any crimes come up.

Chances are VERY high he kept your $200k. He will be the only one on that
burning plane ride with a financial parachute....

I suggest suing him or threatening criminal charges. he might magically find
the lost payroll money and reimburse you....poor h-1b visa dudes will get jack
shit.

~~~
albertcbrown
He didn't keep the money. It all went to payroll.

~~~
ryuker16
Only if forced too....not every employee likely got payroll or maybe got a
reduced amount with an IOU.

------
SakiWatanabe
>Michael said under his breath in our second language, “Look at those Chinese
kids. They’re pretty happy they got paid, huh?”

Kim (the writer) is a korean last name, is the company CEO korean too?

~~~
kijin
If the company and employees identified by other people in this thread are
correct, then yes, it would seem that this company has a Korean CEO who enjoys
the loyalty of a Korean clique within the company. Some of the Caucasian
employees have close ties to Korea as well. OP was ostracized and eventually
kicked out because she didn't go along with the clique despite sharing their
ethnicity.

The H1B's are Chinese and probably have no influence over how the Korean
clique runs their company. The quote from "Michael" suggests that he has
little more than contempt for the "Chinese kids". I can almost hear the Korean
version of that remark in my head, and unfortunately this kind of racism is
all too common among the assholes who give my country a bad rep.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Yep, it would appear that their current Marketing Manager "Jessica" spent a
stint working in ROK for a startup.

------
amusedreading
lol, WrkRiot just posted this response
[https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf](https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf)

WrkRiot is considering legal action against a disgruntled former employee who
has launched a slanderous campaign against WrkRiot and some of its employees
via social media. While it is not our policy to discuss personnel matters, we
want to make it clear that this former employee was fired for cause. Signed
affidavits from current employees attest to this former employee’s failure to
perform her required duties in the workplace. In addition, they attest to her
participation in an attempt to undermine or oust certain members of
management. This former employee demanded a sum of $50,000 upon her departure.
Under no verbal agreement, contract or any other type of covenant was this
person entitled to such a sum. After learning that WrkRiot would not pay what
it considered extortion money, this former employee began her campaign of
slanderous of activity over the Internet. WrkRiot believes this former
employee’s writings have led to dangerous situations for many of our employees
through the leaking of personal information and through threats being made
over social media from others who have taken the former employee’s
misinformation as truth. We regret having to spend time and effort on this
when there is so much to do in the development of our unique application.
However, we want to make it abundantly clear that the slanderous writings of a
disgruntled former employee do not represent the truth about WrkRiot, its
management or workforce. The racist, sexist and abusive comments our employees
have received are inexcusable. Further, we want to make it clear that we will
seek any and all legal remedies to end this campaign of slander.

~~~
intothemild
Reality is that they have opened themselves up to a case that can be brought
to the DA and the DA can pursue charges against the salary fraud.

If I was an American, I would be doing this regardless....

This facebook post of theirs just did two things

1.) Confirm its them. 2.) Lose them the ability to settle this quietly.

They could have quietly sat down with Penny and sort this out, but they
didn't... that ship has sailed, they had one card in the deck to play, which
was "Heres money, now take the post down and sign this non-disclosure".

But by posting it this on Facebook, then well .. they lost the ability to
pretend it was not them.. there goes the ability to enforce a NDA.

They won't pay her now, the best they can do is "Don't go to the DA and we
will give you the money" Which they won't do.

~~~
ChristopherE
That there was apparently not NDA required on her exit more than anything just
how amateur this Choi is. All he had to do was give her an extra grand
specifically as compared consideration for an NDA and nothing but the
government complaints would be said. Obviously you can't prohibit the
reporting of a crime but she already did that anyway.

Which makes me wonder, why isn't she under an NDA already? Every one I've
signed prohibit discussing practices even after termination for cause.

~~~
dboreham
Perhaps because said NDA wouldn't stand up in the event that they didn't pay?
(especially since the disclosures related to said lack of payment). She wasn't
disclosing their secret sauce recipe.

------
pyre
I'm curious what the "H1Bs cannot be used to control employees because H1Bs
have a process to move to another company" crowd thinks of this situation.

~~~
st3v3r
They'll say something about being able to leave, but completely ignoring the
situation being extremely stressful and scary. Victim blaming and a complete
lack of empathy will ensue.

~~~
hueving
"victim blaming" is a loaded term to avoid any examination of the
responsibility of the person who got screwed. When a drunk driver rolls their
car and breaks both of their own legs, it is their responsibility for driving
drunk, yet you don't find many people calling that "victim blaming" or "a lack
of empathy".

Anyone who uses that term tends to be appealing to emotion rather than
proposing anything of substance.

~~~
pyre
> "victim blaming" is a loaded term to avoid any examination of the
> responsibility of the person who got screwed.

Are you claiming that "victim blaming" isn't a thing? There are plenty of
people that want to shuttle blame/responsibility around, and will blame the
victim for not making better choices, while absolving all others of guilt.

Take this incident as an example:

 _" Well, none of those employees are being forced to work there, so it's
their own fault for not getting paid. They should have just chosen a more
trust-worthy employer!"_

~~~
Chris2048
> Are you claiming that "victim blaming" isn't a thing?

I think the point is clear: "victim blaming" isn't a thing" _isn 't_ that
claim, so why are you asking?

Your example _is_ one where _some_ fault lies with the employee, namely
employment due-diligence, although not entirely. Its possible for both parties
to have partial blame for the totality of faults leading to a situation. A
"victim" can also be at fault, as in the drunk-driver example.

~~~
st3v3r
No. None of the fault whatsoever lies with the employee. None. Thus, your
example is one of classic victim blaming, which is completely abhorrent.

~~~
Chris2048
No. Nada. Wrong. False. Truth-through-repetition.

Have a nice nice life distancing yourself from any responsibility.

~~~
st3v3r
The employee isn't the one who made the choice to defraud people. The employer
did. Hence, the employer has all responsibility for what they did.

~~~
Chris2048
The original context was a H1B via employee who realized, or suspected, what
was going on but didn't leave.

> They'll say something about being able to leave, but completely ignoring the
> situation being extremely stressful and scary. Victim blaming and a complete
> lack of empathy will ensue.

------
sp527
This must have been a traumatizing experience but the one thing I would want
to add to it based upon my own experience is that things don't get that much
better at the unicorns. Having worked for one that's still chugging along,
I've seen the fake-it-til-you-make-it paradigm persist well into the 'mature'
phase of a company. The industry at large feels like such a house of cards.
It's not that value isn't being generated, but rather that it has been so
dramatically overvalued.

------
delwilliams
The reason she did not see the red flags is because that's what being conned
looks like. They don't call them con artist for nothing, and he seems up the
chain on mastery.

~~~
jlian
I went through a similar experience. In hindsight the red flags were extremely
obvious but I was also in extreme denial. I really wanted it to be true and
was not willing to face whatever I would be able to dig up. So I didn't try.
Paychecks were bouncing and I was still clasping onto the sliver of hope in
order to not lose the job.

I was (am still am) a new grad with no experience but I had co-workers with
families and responsibilities. We all wanted it to be true too badly and
willfully ignored the warning signs.

------
gozur88
If I'm understanding the article correctly this goes beyond not getting paid
because the CEO is juggling accounts - the Wells Fargo thing is probably
criminal.

~~~
dragonwriter
The "not getting paid on time" thing is, by itself, criminal in California.

See California Labor Code Secs. 204 & 215.

[http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?division=2.&chapter=1.&part=1.&lawCode=LAB&article=1).

------
halestock
How did a company with 17 employees manage to get 9 H1Bs?

~~~
jboggan
This stood out as well. I'd wager that those 9 Chinese employees might be
misled about their legal status.

~~~
cperciva
Wouldn't that get caught at the airport? I mean, when someone arrives and says
they have an H1B visa, USCIS does check, right?

Now, given everything else here I wouldn't be surprised if there was fraud
involved in getting the H1B visas issued, but that's separate from the
question of whether people who think they have H1B visas actually have H1B
visas.

~~~
NhanH
It sounds to me like they were new graduate on OPT (F1 visa) transitioning to
H1B, in which case they never have to go through the airport check yet.

Which also means that if they believed they have a H1B, they could have been
misled into staying illegally one way or another (OPT has some reporting
requirement, you have to notify your school every 6 months and anytime you
change jobs/ locations etc).

~~~
javienegas
That is very likely, most of them started on November-December 2015, so they
are on the transition from OPT to H1B.

------
aioprisan
Sunshine is the best medicine
[https://twitter.com/WrkRiot/status/767449617071878144](https://twitter.com/WrkRiot/status/767449617071878144)

------
mrhektor
Singaporean startup founder here who moved from the US. I have yet to meet a
psychopathic CEO here in Singapore, but I've met and heard about quite a few
in Silicon Valley / Bay Area. It may just be selection bias (a lot more
companies are founded in the Bay Area) but I wonder if there's something more.
Any other insights into Bay Area startups vs. international startups here?

~~~
jmartens
I had a Singaporean (from Inida) "investor" sign docs only to stall, lie, and
eventually fake wire transfers (also from wells fargo, which is ironic in this
article). Tried to forget the guy, but think he first name was Sumanth. Be
careful if anyone comes across this fraud!

------
jimmywanger
"Sunshine is the best disinfectant."

This might be counterproductive in some instances, but if something doesn't
smell right, I'll try to blow it up and make all the dealings very public.

I mean, there are no personal feelings involved. You are paying me to be a
worker. No pay? No work.

~~~
jtfairbank
Usually not a good idea. This opens you up to: defamation lawsuits, contract
violations, and provides cause for firing which could hurt your own claims.

Scumbag Startup: "We fired Screwed Employee for cause."

Screwed Employee: "No you didn't! It was retaliation."

Scumbag Startup: "Sure we did. Look at what he/she posted publicly after
leaving the company. Screwed Employee behaved similarly around the office and
was negatively impacting the work environment."

~~~
jimmywanger
Ah, you misunderstood.

When I said blow things up and make things public, I meant make all my
communications with management and the company very out in the open, CC
everybody.

That way, if they do fire you for cause, you have a paper trail, and you tend
to keep a lid on their worst tendencies because then they have to justify
their words/actions to their own employees.

No, you never escalate publicly, not to people outside the company. As long as
everybody is CCed while the conversation is going on, they don't have a leg to
stand on, since everything is factual.

~~~
jtfairbank
Even doing this with unrelated parties inside the company is dangerous. The
best thing to do is just CC your own lawyer. It's sad, but you potentially
open yourself up to liability by warning your co-workers. If you do want to
warn them, the best way would be through a quiet, short conversation in a
private place away from the company. Possibly your lawyer's office.

~~~
jimmywanger
I don't see how you open yourself up to liability.

This is before anything is really bad, but you are getting suspicious.

If you hire a lawyer, you're instantly at DEFCON 1. CCing all your teammates
has plausible deniability, especially if they're in the same boat you are.

You're not trying to warn anybody here. You're raising a gigantic red flag
saying "Hey this is happening to me. If this is happening to you too, let
people know instead of just suffering in silence."

~~~
dragonwriter
> If you hire a lawyer, you're instantly at DEFCON 1.

No, when you hire a lawyer and provide them documentation on what has
transpired and is transpiring, you are just building an arsenal to be prepared
in case of further escalation.

When you have your lawyer contact the company, even then, you aren't at DEFCON
1, though that is a significant escalation (or a response to one.)

When you file legal action against the company, _then_ you are at DEFCON 1.

~~~
jimmywanger
I should have been more clear.

If you ever email your coworkers, and CC your boss/fellow employees that
you've done so, you're at DEFCON 1.

That implies that legal action is imminent.

If you BCC your lawyer, or just save up the information for later, that
doesn't escalate the situation quite as much and allows people to back down
more.

------
ChristopherE
Shaka, and the walls fell.

It looks like the rats are fleeing the ship:

[https://medium.com/@dtunkelang/lesson-learned-
ab0dc6723b8c#....](https://medium.com/@dtunkelang/lesson-learned-
ab0dc6723b8c#.vq6u3rj7y)

------
jsumrall
Someone from that area might want to contact the local DA's office:
[http://sfdistrictattorney.org/contact-
us](http://sfdistrictattorney.org/contact-us)

------
MichaelBurge
Isn't the photoshopped wire transfer literally outright criminal fraud? The
government should move fast and break him.

~~~
spriggan3
> Isn't the photoshopped wire transfer literally outright criminal fraud? The
> government should move fast and break him.

Definitely fraudulent.

------
ChristopherE
New details emerge in a story by the New York Times including an interview
with Choi and questions about his background and allegations of not fulfilling
advertising contracts.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/technology/a-silicon-
valle...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/technology/a-silicon-valley-dream-
collapses-in-allegations-of-
fraud.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&_r=0)

------
cycomachead
Gosh this is awful. I'm glad Penny was able to get out when she could, but I
can't imagine being in that experience.

And the marketing...if "wrkriot" is really the new site, this is just sad. The
latest post on "Goals" is just SMART goals without even mentioning the
acronym...wow.

------
a_small_island
I feel bad for the employees. This song will repeat itself many times over.
Selfish deluded egomaniac taking advantage of people and their livelihood.
Good luck to the rank and file.

------
cyberferret
Clicked on this expecting to see another millennial self entitled "why I left"
rant, but found a well written, horrifying article on deception and
underhanded shenanigans.

The CEO of this startup qualifies be listed under the other discussion on here
about psychopaths running companies.

~~~
sanderjd
Odd, I've never come across a rant like that. But I do seem to see self
satisfied "millennial" bashing pretty often. (I don't think I'll ever
understand this impulse to ascribe vague personality traits to broad groups of
people across a large number of birth years.)

~~~
cyberferret
Apologies, it was probably a little too judgemental and unnecessarily tarred a
lot of people with a wide brush, but there was a phase about 12 months ago
where Medium was full of posts, to paraphrase what someone else said: "By
unknown twenty-something year olds posting angst driven articles about leaving
some unknown valley startup as if they were Jimmy Page leaving Led
Zeppelin"...

~~~
jsprogrammer
Could you please link to one of those posts so that we may read one?

~~~
newllama
[https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-
fb73d...](https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73df021e7a)

I'm almost certain that this is the post he had in mind while writing this
comment.

~~~
ryguytilidie
It's weird, because the person said "another one of those..." The Talia Jane
article came to mind but I'm quite sure there aren't others. Seems kind of
weird to imply this happens all the time when its happened exactly once.

------
BradRuderman
The biggest red flag for me is when no one at the company (even the founders)
have experienced the problem their product is solving!

~~~
loeg
There's a huge difference between starting a company that will fail on (lack
of) merits, and being unethical to your employees. Huge.

------
erikb
Actually many of the red flags aren't really red flags. I already considered
to completely ignore this article. But some, especially 8 and 9 are quite
valuable to people who have never experienced that.

The ones I consider serious are these: 1 (hire/fire fast), 4 (given
responsibility without authority), 6 (unclear product), 8 (weird money
habits), 9 (law problems).

Others I consider quite important: too much money without backing in team
strenght and professional attitude (either founders or investors are
bullshitting someone), don't trust the team (when shit hits the fan everybody
will cover their ass and taking care of others may be considered breaking your
employers trust), act context aware (opinion is more important than actual
facts, consider when to tell which fact/idea to whom, when everybody is happy
because of a successful lie then you have low leverage for the moment).

In any case I think you need to have a few of these experiences to be able to
survive in a business environment. When stakes are high, information is hard
to come by, and you don't have years to learn to know the other parties, then
people will do unexpected things (lying, faking success, spying, or simply not
supporting you when you are under attack). Important resumee point: I survived
X scams.

------
mattydread
Here's a followup from Business Insider:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/wrkriot-
burned-700000-alleged...](http://www.businessinsider.com/wrkriot-
burned-700000-allegedly-lied-to-employees-2016-8)

------
liquidise
I found the bit about the negotiated salary of particular note. I have never
included severance in my negotiations, mostly because i have always left my
jobs willingly. Is that something more common than i know of? What is a
reasonable target to aim for?

~~~
planteen
I've never heard of it either other than for executives with golden parachutes

~~~
brianwawok
It can happen anywhere. It's all about how much power you have. Random
programmer #134 of a Fortune 500 company? Not so much. Hired to lead a new VR
projects? Plausible.

For most developer jobs, you don't need it.. because with the job market, it
is very easy to find a new job if one flops. But if you had to make a move
cross country? It may be easier to get signoff on severance.

~~~
ryandrake
> For most developer jobs, you don't need it.. because with the job market, it
> is very easy to find a new job if one flops. But if you had to make a move
> cross country? It may be easier to get signoff on severance.

Wait, what?? Is the "shortage of engineers" meme back?

------
therealjohn
Keep it up Penny! I have only worked for one startup ever right after
graduation, and when I think back of it, those 2 years were not only too good
to be true, but they did happen. There are good leaders out there, keep having
faith!

------
chejazi
Crunchbase company profile, as determined from the comments on HN:
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/1for-
one](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/1for-one)

~~~
xiphias
Investor $1M Isaac Choi

Where's the 4M here that the OP was writing about? She could have checked
crunchbase to see that the startup doesn't have money.

~~~
hackaflocka
Is Crunchbase a 100% reliable source? How do they do their due diligence?

~~~
mcpherrinm
They don't at all. I've seen significant errors before. It's usually vaguely
correct, but when you've got a manipulative liar running your company,
Crunchbase isn't going to help.

------
iamleppert
On Isaac Choi's LinkedIn page he also has the following "jobs platform":
[http://1for.one/](http://1for.one/)

------
35bge57dtjku
Is it a bad sign that all SW engineers were on H1B visas? Why wouldn't they
hire any from the US?

~~~
liulu
For control. A US employee can walk away from the sinking ship any time
without too much repercussions, not the case for foreign nationals staying on
company sponsored visas

~~~
wazu
What could have they done in this situation?

~~~
chrisper
Assuming that they acutally are legally in the country, they could have talked
to a lawyer and try to find a new job.

~~~
gotrecruit
and the lawyer would tell them "don't bother, just go" unless the lawyer just
wants to make free money. honestly, getting H1B is tough enough already -
trying to secure an extension or transfer of H1B when your first one is
entangled in fraud, practically impossible.

------
ChristopherE
Another follow-up by Tess Townsend of Inc.

A couple highlights:

"...I'm not happy that all these names and faces are out there." \-- Penny Kim

Kim has received 10-20 invitations to apply for marketing positions in SV and
Texas.

Kim received a cease and desist order via email prior to the now deleted
threat of legal action posted to Facebook.

[http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/medium-post-wrkriot-
viral-w...](http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/medium-post-wrkriot-viral-
why.html)

~~~
webmaven
> Kim has a couple theories as to why her post struck a chord in the startup
> world. First, she thinks anonymizing the startup stirred interest,
> referencing a concept with which she became familiar after writing the post:
> the Streisand effect. It's the idea that hiding information can have the
> unintended consequence of publicizing it by motivating people to find out
> what's missing.

Argh. That's not the Streisand Effect, the SE is what happens when the subject
tries to suppress the story, especially using legal threats (which happened
too, but only quite a bit after the Medium post was getting traction).

The name of the phenomenon of secrecy driving up interest is the Information
Gap effect, IIRC. Plus, in this case, we can add rubbernecking (also known as
morbid curiosity) driving up interest.

------
choonway
I would have left the company at red flag #6, inability to tell a compelling
story.

And I am looking at this from a software developer's point of view.

------
ChristopherE
TechCrunch article on them trying to disappear from the Internet
[https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-
sca...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-scam-
accusation/?ncid=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter)

------
nottellingyou
Everyone is focus on the wrong point. Anyone could help those poor Chinese
kids to get a job? They might have to go back to China

------
swang
okay i can understand why the title got changed. but why to what it is
currently? feels like a "missed the lede" kinda title which isn't any better
than the original title.

------
derek1800
How common is this behavior at startups in Silicon Valley? Can anyone share
similar stories or point me at other posts?

~~~
rco8786
As with any geography/industry, there are some people with questionable
morals. It's nothing unique to SV or startups.

~~~
_pmf_
> It's nothing unique to SV or startups.

In most European countries, not paying your employees in the course of
delaying bankruptcy on purpose will be a jail term. I was under the impression
that California (as opposed to the rest of the US of A) had pretty strict
workforce protection laws, too.

~~~
sidlls
Laws still require enforcement. And from what I've seen California is a bit
over-hyped in many ways, including how liberal/progressive it is, how hard it
is to start and run a business, and how well it protects employees.

~~~
gkop
My tl;dr layman's understanding is that in CA, missing a payroll equates to
the company is no longer a going concern. It's a serious problem to miss a
payroll, and this is a good thing. If you are responsible for payroll at a CA
company, you need to see a potential shortfall coming well in advance and
respond preemptively by negotiating [hopefully] temporary salary cuts with
your employees or preparing the team to go on unpaid leave (this is legal -
you should continue paying their insurance premiums though).

------
socrates1998
These guys are fucked. If she has all the screenshots and other material, they
will be fighting a losing cause.

And it doesn't sound like they have any money for lawyers, lol.

This is what you get when fuck people over with giving them their severance.
They have ZERO reason to hold back.

I wish this type of stuff was published more often.

------
geocode
"Jessica"'s point of view:

[https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-
liking-y...](https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-your-
job-fighting-the-good-fight/)

~~~
buckbova
"You’re not trying to dupe people or trick them. You’re trying to help. You’re
looking out for all of your friends who are living in their parents’ basements
crying over their degrees, wishing they hadn’t taken on the student debt.
You’re rallying for your parents, who are working well below their
intelligence and skill sets just to put food on the table. You’re going to
enable the world to stand up for itself and take back its work ethic. You’re
going to change things."

Changed for the worse.

------
taneq
Wow, that whole tale of woe is giving me flashbacks to a startup game studio I
worked at once upon a time. They never resorted to outright fraud in the 'lets
not pay them, but say we did' sense but there was plenty of the other sketchy
behaviour.

------
TheActuallyer
I've experienced a quite similar situation. Moved to a new city with a promise
of a nice pay and a good job for a startup. First month of the project CEO
ended up in a psyc ward. Luckily I got out with my head and limbs still
attached to my body.

------
AKifer
From Jessica "1For.One is a start-up company in Silicon Valley, and unlike
most impersonal and money hungry people you meet here, the founders have truly
created a sense of family and obligation in the office. I’ve only been here a
week, but feel completely integrated. Everyone is friendly and open, they work
hard, but smart. It’s a breath of fresh air."
[https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-
liking-y...](https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-your-
job-fighting-the-good-fight/)

------
zappo2938
If all correspondence is done on the phone and not through email. I
communicate through writing much better than on the phone so I wrote long and
explicit emails. I don't feel like I have anything to hide. The phone only
people are the ones who go back on their word.

The other thing is one size fits all NDA / non compete contract. Maybe it
makes sense for the sales people but for writing code every day inventing
things it doesn't make sense for the employee. If people don't want to take
the time to write an appropriate NDA / non compete contract I have no time for
them.

------
partycoder
Glassdoor can be a proper place to leave warnings to potential candidates.

------
restlessdesign
Red flag #…well…whatever: noindex tags on the company’s homepage. Though maybe
that’s included in that Chinese company’s “Scrub the CEO’s name and profile
photos from the Internet” package.

~~~
wingworks
I would never work for a company where the CEO's name and pictures aren't
public. They're the face of the company, I'm not sure how he expects the
company to become big if he's hiding all the time...

------
leaningtower
Under the assumption that the story is true, thing that I cannot assume from a
blog post, this should be notified to the authorities more than be posted on
HN.

Also notice that before any actual confirmation or official investigation,
pointing fingers trying to find companies that match the description could be
a criminal offense as well as you could damage the reputation of totally fine
companies.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Also notice that before any actual confirmation or official investigation,
> pointing fingers trying to find companies that match the description could
> be a criminal offense as well as you could damage the reputation of totally
> fine companies.

Well, I mean, that's already been done, but I don't see any criminal law that
could remotely be applicable. What crime do you imagine this is?

Heck, I don't even see how posting "it appears from details in the article
that it is talking about WrkRiot" could even be _civil_ defamation, even if
taking other things into account (Such as the source article) the net effect
is damaging. Even if the source article would, if deanonymized, be defamatory.

Damaging reputation alone _isn 't_ generally actionable, at least in US law.
Knowingly (or recklessly) making _false_ statements that damage a company may
be.

------
tedmiston
To gather from all of the subthreads, the company's names include: JobSonic,
1for.one, and WrkRiot.

Disclaimer: Note that these are still technically rumors from the Hacker News
comments that seem _plausible_ but there has not been explicit confirmation,
besides the author "recommending" a comment on Medium that points to this
thread saying that HN has figured out the name.

~~~
intothemild
The company "job sonic" posted something on its Facebook confirming that they
will be suing a former employee for the medium post..

Thats confirmation in my book

------
chicagotosf
This guy?

[https://www.facebook.com/isaac.choi](https://www.facebook.com/isaac.choi)

------
joelseq
Can someone explain to me how they are selling job data when they are scraping
it from other job boards?
[https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/videos/1142030219204484/](https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/videos/1142030219204484/)

------
mathattack
_Red flag #10: There’s a huge moral and legal difference between buying time
with lies versus calculated fraud_

Maybe legally, but not so much morally. The lies are part of calculated fraud.
Nonetheless, a very good cautionary tale. I've seen several friends of mine
chase "Too Good To Be True" dreams.

------
thelarkinn
Does anyone find this search results on ISAAC CHOI ironic? (Photo shows google
search results with Poker Player for online gambling site as one of the top
results).

Wonder where all that money went. ;-)

[http://imgur.com/a/bX9po](http://imgur.com/a/bX9po)

------
smb06
They have scrubbed their online presence.

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-
sca...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-scam-
accusation/)

------
AKifer
Reading this story, seems to be a story straight out of Venkatesh Rao fertile
mind instead of a real life story. These guys will have a tough 2016 quarter,
now all the eyes left Martin Shkreli to be on them.

------
ara24
well written story.

with all the troubles, I wonder how the founder could just keep going. may be
it is as the story says, "default human condition to not give up" but at what
cost.

~~~
allenu
I suspect that he's probably convinced himself that they will one day be
successful so these smaller missteps will be paid back several times over once
they are. If he's been operating that way for a while, inertia must kick in,
especially if no one is really calling him out on basic things like payroll.
As Feynman once said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself
and you are the easiest person to fool."

------
delwilliams
Sadly Silicon Valley is ripe for frauds because of the money.

------
sodafountan
Perhaps the person who wrote this article is smarter than we think and this is
some intricate marketing plot designed to draw traffic and attention to
wrkriot?

~~~
HalcyonicStorm
Except that this brought a lot of bad attention to the company and the people
who work there

------
hannahwright
Wow, just wow. The ultimate sketchy. How do companies like this expect to
carry on and cover up their fraud with a simple name change?

------
grangerthings
This whole time, I'm surprised everyone's remained unphased by the Spongebob
memes on WkrRiot's Facebook page.

------
tbrooks
What's the real identity of the startup?

~~~
krustchinsky
Looks like it's Job Sonic. If you look at the CEO, the information checks out.

~~~
sleazebreeze
Job Sonic -> 1for.one -> WrkRiot

Each name worse than the last...

~~~
1_listerine_pls
I think they are spot on. They even show the status of the company at each
stage.

------
carrja99
I feel the worst for those H1B1 employees. They can easily be left in legal
limbo with this situation.

------
nottellingyou
Anyone can help those POOR Chinese kids. They might have to go back to China
because of this.

------
puppetmaster3
reminds me of this:

[http://reddit.com/r/startups/comments/3m3lp6/failed_startup_...](http://reddit.com/r/startups/comments/3m3lp6/failed_startup_is_destroying_me)

------
kordless
> Wanting to put a good foot forward, I brushed off the confusion

This is codependence, defined.

------
poolshark
These are the kind of startups that give the H-1B visa program a bad rep...
sad

------
SamChoi
Yikes. Hope I don't run into one of these when I graduate. :/

------
zippyzealous
Has anyone else had a similar shitty experience with a startup?

------
dimitar9
Hopefully they can sue this Korean cheater, throw him into jail for years and
deport him back to North Korea.

------
0xmohit
Maybe somebody should try reaching out at +1.4083447484 to figure why the
startup acted thus.

------
potie15
was waiting for this to show up here

------
gaius
Red Flag 4.5: The high percentage of H1Bs with little experience. This visa is
meant to be for people with irreplaceable skills, not cheap labour.

~~~
kabdib
How is it that an "H1B with little experience" is even possible, then?

~~~
krinchan
Legally, all you have to do is post a job offering on some dark corner of the
internet for your job that pays a fair market wage. If you can't hire anyone
for a specific period, you get to look for an H1-B!

The problem is that "fair market wage" is actually defined legally by
congress. That wage for IT related jobs is barely enough to make a proper
middle-class living in a metal trailer 2 hours outside of Las Vegas, much less
San Francisco, New York City, or even Atlanta.

So you basically base your office in a city where the COL is high, require
your employee to live in said city, and post job listings with a wage no US
Citizen who lives in that city would take. If you get anyone actually
desperate enough, you invent some magical reason they don't qualify. Not
enough experience (10 years for a tech that's been out 2), didn't have
experience with JMS (1 out of the 2,000 tech keywords on your listing and
honestly if you can write a java application you can read a JMS queue, it's 10
minutes of google), or any of the other reasons you can invent to not hire
someone. It's the exact same strategy deployed to not hire someone based on
sexual orientation, gender identity, or ethnicity.

Then, you get your cheap H1-B worker who can't leave your company or _even
change their job title_ or they get deported.

~~~
menage
That sounds more like the process of applying for a Labor Certificate, as part
of a green card. For an H-1B you just need an approved Labor Condition
Application, which attests that you're offering the "prevailing wage" for the
region/occupation, and (I think) that there's a general shortage of that
occupation in the region (and not that you had no US citizen replies to your
specific job advert)

------
st3v3r
Why was the company not named? Everyone needs to be warned against working
with these scumbags, both employees and clients.

I hope the state prosecutes the hell out of them, and the founders are left
living under a bridge.

~~~
nameless912
Witch-hunting. Our legal standard is "innocent until proven guilty", and the
author already filed a legal complaint, so the best thing for her to do is
tell her story in general terms and let the legal system sort it out.
Vigilante justice of any kind (including an internet lynch mob) doesn't help.

~~~
st3v3r
Legal standard. This isn't a court of law. By your logic, if a friend asked me
about working for a place, I shouldn't be able to tell them my experiences,
because that would be "vigilante justice."

The company needs to be named and shamed, otherwise they will keep getting
away with this trash. People will still sign up to work for them, not knowing
what is happening. By putting the name of the company out there, those people
can be informed, and make a better decision.

------
wcummings
>There’s no way a startup I found on Angel.co is going to screw me over, I
thought

Is this satire?

~~~
tedmiston
Based on the fact that the author called it "Angel.co" over and over instead
of AngelList, I have a hunch she hadn't worked in startups before this.

------
maverick_iceman
[https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf](https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf)

------
godzillabrennus
This is becoming better than an episode of Silicon Valley on HBO. I hope they
release a video statement countering the claim where you can clearly see they
have coke out on the table.

The CEO of this "company" is basically Russ Hanneman without the money.
Instead a boat load of debt.

~~~
dang
This is not an acceptable comment on Hacker News. Please post civilly and
substantively, or not at all.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12386468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12386468)
and marked it off-topic.

------
bambax
> _Jessica would ignore my best practices recommendations (...) and promote
> her “gonzo style” writings that were often filled with typos and grammatical
> errors._

> _I don’t when or how the money became an issue_

Typos happen.

~~~
Veen
So does proofreading.

~~~
OJFord
Or rather, it should.

------
jamisteven
I see nothing about her researching these founders prior to agreeing to work
for them, nothing about a signed contract, something like this would never
happen to me, sounds like this girl needs a good lesson in street smarts. Way
too gullible.

~~~
readitmeow
She obviously had a contract seeing as how she had to get it revised multiple
times before she signed. If you did research and couldn't find enough about
the CEO, you would see the CTO, the other founder, was legitimate with press
releases by companies that were eventually acquired by big names like IBM.

Saying this would never happen to you is pretentious and ignorant.

