

Ask HN:How to fire a client who is a scamming gullible people through your work? - fire_a_scammer

I am the CEO of a small software services based company(7 devs including me). We
have been working for a customer for almost an year now. We created a job
portal for these guys from the ground up.<p>They told me that thier business model was:<p>a. They put up ads on newspapers and other media.<p>b. People looking for jobs call them.<p>c. An agent tries to sell the caller, one of their products which helps them get a job.<p>d. They said that if a job seeker buys their "paid product" they hookup the job
   seeker with one of their employers, meaning that they had contacts through
   which they patch up job seekers and potential employers.<p>e. The job portal itself showed jobs which were scraped from careerbuilder,
   monster etc,.<p>That's what I knew when our company took up the job. It still sounds like a scam, but I did some 
research on these guys and found nothing suspicious. So, I went ahead and took
up the job, trusted that I was not doing anything wrong, and everything was hunky dory.<p>Recently I found that the job-seekers didn't actually call them, It was the
other way round. These guys got the information about people looking for jobs,
and called them up trying to sell their product. Now, when I search for the
company, I see a lot of complaints about these guys on ripoffreport.com and
800notes.com.<p>I am convinced that these guys are cheating people who are
desperate to get jobs. And, I am gonna stop working on all their stuff right
now. That is what I am gonna do. However, I need help figuring out a few
things:<p>1. What would be the best way to tell them, that I am going to stop working on their projects?<p>2. Also, these guys have told me recently, that they want more developers and
   that they want to build more things. So, How do I cut them off completely?<p>3. How can a company like ours spot these scammers before taking up a job in the
   future?<p>4. Lastly, is there anything I can do, to undo the damage I've done to these
   job-seekers?<p>P.S Please upvote this so that, I can get this in front of as many eyes as
possible. It's an anonymous account.<p>Thank you!
======
rbanffy
1) If your contract allows you to, just tell them to seek another company. You
can also, as davidj pointed out, just raise your prices to levels they won't
pay.

2) See #1

3) Experience. Like you said, it looked fishy from the start. If it looks
fishy, that's because it probably is.

4) You can offer those who are programmers work or classes, but it's not
really your fault a client of yours is less than ethical.

Many years ago I wrote an article for a local magazine that motivated me to
start a blog. A company much like this one called me and set up an interview.
I noticed the fishiness right away and played along for a while and, then,
wrote the article.

If you have the stomach for a Google translated version,

[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&tl...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dieblinkenlights.com%2Fartigos_pt%2Fheadhunters-
do-mal)

~~~
brudgers
> _"just raise your prices to levels they won't pay."_

That suggests that one can be bought for a bigger cut from the scam. It is not
consistent with holding an absolute ethical standard. A price is a line in the
sand, not a strategic withdrawal.

Promptly and professionally declining all future work is the simplest
approach. The explanation need only be "due to other obligations."

~~~
rms
How about a relative ethical standard instead? Raise the price to a ridiculous
level, then if they pay, save the lives of 30 infants. Sounds like a worthy
moral tradeoff to me.

[http://www.givewell.org/international/top-
charities/villager...](http://www.givewell.org/international/top-
charities/villagereach)

~~~
brudgers
Interesting, except that the idea was to raise the price so high that the
person would not pay it. And of course, saving 30 infants might not offset the
damage done by the scam...if one is willing to count dead babies.

------
patio11
The easiest way to decline _future_ work is "Thanks, not interested."
Consultants don't particularly owe anybody an explanation for saying this --
it is the nature of the beast, just like clients don't particularly need to
call you and tell why you they aren't calling you.

Things get trickier if you need to extricate yourself from work you've already
agreed to do.

------
jacquesm
Talk to a laywer, make sure that you're not by chance accessory to something
illegal (likely you're not, but knowing a-e you might be, after all you knew
these things _before_ undertaking the work), politely decline future work and
forget about taking revenge, it leads nowhere.

Interfering with their ability to operate their business might give them
grounds enough to sue you, and weird as it may sound, they may have a warranty
claim on you for some time past the delivery of the last piece of software
(since you have no contract and this has not been explicitly outlined there
may be an implicit component there).

If you're in some position of responsibility with regards to the execution of
the scam (it _doesn't_ look like it from what you've described) then you have
other fish to fry first to extricate yourself from that.

If it turns out that the company is doing something illegal (and from what you
write it definitely sounds like that, already based on the first bunch of
items!) you have of course no obligation to continue, and you _may_ have an
obligation to contact law enforcement.

I really strongly recommend you talk to a lawyer that is well versed in
employment law for your jurisdiction, you may be in more trouble than you
think.

~~~
fire_a_scammer
Our company is based off of India. So, they can't really sue me, but I don't
want things to turn ugly. I'll probably let them be. If possible write a few
posts on an anonymous blog to create awareness.

I've been telling these guys that I don't work on illegitimate stuff from the
start. And they were like: "yeah, fleecing people who are the most vulnerable
sucks, totally". The only regret that I have, is that I have unknowingly
helped a few bad guys.

~~~
clarkevans
Well, they can't sue you; but, those seeking employment in the U.S. may be
able to do so. Perhaps collecting a list of those about-to-be-scammed would be
helpful to a district attorney? Regardless, I'd obtain counsel.

An interesting thing happened to me about 5 years ago. Someone was applying
for a position at my company, and when I did background checks, he turned out
to be a rather deceitful fella (and felon). He made the mistake of emailing me
from another company's email where he was employed. I followed up, and
explained the legal status of their employee to the owner of the 10 person
company. She was shocked (not surprised) to hear about their current employee.
I can just imagine a case where our screening failed -- I'd want you to make
that call...

~~~
djb_hackernews
Deceitful? How so? If it was just because he was a felon then that's a shitty
thing you did ratting him out to his employer.

~~~
clarkevans
He used an alias and completely falsified his resume.

------
mcculley
I also run a small software services firm.

You are in an unpleasant situation. It's like removing a bandaid. Be prepared
for the pain and do it anyway.

1\. There is no pleasant way to have the discussion. Don't let this stop you
from telling them that you don't think you can do the work in good conscience.
You don't have to get into deep details about why you think the work is
unethical unless you want to. Other than that, say as little as possible.

2\. You have no obligation to build more things for this client or any other
client. Turning down the work is unpleasant, but it sounds like you need to do
it.

3\. You can't always spot the scammers. Also, a perfectly good client may
become an unethical client over time as conditions change. Be prepared to walk
away.

4\. I would be careful about trying to undo the damage. There is always the
danger of making matters worse for your organization. You should seek legal
counsel. Your lawyer will likely tell you not to do anything. You may decide
you should do something anyway. If you do, define a process and stick to it
and have your lawyer tell you what the implications will be.

Use this as a lesson to always have a service agreement in place. The
agreement should have a clause which allows either party to end the agreement
with sufficient notice. Because you have no agreement in place, I would
recommend you seek legal counsel immediately.

Feel free to contact me (see profile) if you would like to talk about it.

------
andyn
I don't really think you can legitimately take revenge on them or sabotage the
site in any manner. Plus they will keep on building these sites, with or
without you. If you are lucky, there may be some procedure in your country for
reporting them.

Really all you should do is just write them a letter stating that you feel you
can no longer work for them and you disagree with their business practices.
Something professional and polite.

Once you have made your position clear and walked away there should be no
reason for them to bother you afterwards. If they do you should just ignore
their emails/calls.

Can you really spot people like this in the future? As you've stated above,
there were some suspicions but nothing concrete and you did your research and
found nothing. Did you look up their names as well as their company name?
Often or not they'll just start a new company when one gets a bad name but you
might find mention of their names with previous ... activities.

They lied about their original intent, perhaps they knew you'd get cold feet
if you knew their business plan. So perhaps they'll not be surprised when you
stop working for them.

------
robot
Why worry so much? Just show your standing, send them an email saying your
work ethic does not match with theirs and you will not do any more work for
them. Don't get into a deep discussion on what is wrong, in fact its not a
good idea to judge them, so cut it short. If you couldn't spot it this time no
worries, people make mistakes. There are many people out there like this, you
will get it right the next time.

~~~
fire_a_scammer
Yeah I don't want to get into a deep discussion. But, If I tell them the
reason, they would probably come up with all sorts of explanations or get
defensive and ask me how I came to that conclusion and all. I don't know if
there is a way in which I can get it done and over with without a prolonged
discussion.

~~~
rlpb
Do it objectively. Find and focus on undeniable reasons, not your gut feeling.

"I don't like your ethics" is subjective and is asking for confrontation.

"The number of complaints registered against you is _x_ and it harms my
company to be associated with that. So it's a shame, but we're not going to be
able to sign contracts for further work. Don't worry, we'll finish what we've
already agreed to do so far but after that we're going to have to call it
quits" is objective.

Note that you're not judging them, nor are you even implying that the
complaints to be valid. It's just a business decision based on the number of
them, and who can control that?

------
gaius
_The job portal itself showed jobs which were scraped from careerbuilder,
monster etc_

Sorry, but how could you not know this was a scam from day 1? What sort of a
business scrapes other people's content to sell their own products? You made
your bed, now lie in it.

~~~
fire_a_scammer
They said this was just a thing which the free users could use, this was not a
core feature by a long shot. They said the value was in them, getting the job-
seekers and the employers together, through their internal network.

~~~
gaius
That makes no sense either. The jobs are right there on the web for anyone to
see already. You don't need to pay someone a fee to pass on your CV, again,
obviously a scam from the get go.

------
gorbachev
Contact the Attorney General of your state (or the equivalent if you're
outside US) and describe the scam. Then wait a few months and see your client
escorted to federal prison.

You could also get yourself fired rather than fire the client. I wonder what
would happen, if the quality of your work started to suffer for some reason?
Or if you would suddenly become unresponsive to the client?

There's also the "Italian Strike": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule>

~~~
ahi
Let your client know that you're swamped with other work. Then write, don't
call, the Attorney General. Put it in writing that once you figured out what
was going on you did what you could to put a stop to it.

------
vaksel
what kind of products are these guys trying to sell people?

is it just a premium profile on the job site or what?

------
shareme
ah the items a through e indicate before any research that its illegal at
least in the US..most US states require that any firm asking for payment
before giving out employment information be licensed as a employment firm.

Send a letter and walk away..

From experience..

Recently I was scammed by a felon:

    
    
       The basic scam was we have a gig for you that will turn into employment completing a web portal/ecommerce social site for private investors and private companies. Was told during interview that $100,000 funding through loan was secured and $700,000 loan was being processed. During first 30 days found out that business owner was a drug dealer felon and that his name was not on bank accounts which also means that funding loan game was a con.
    

I sent a letter and walked away.

You are not responsible for what client did to job seekers your only concern
is get away from that relationship before you get burned.

