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Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

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Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#51

Post by themartorana »

uiri wrote: post #37

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 ch…

Also this really isn't a Buzzfeed list - it's a rather personal story, with a little fraud sprinkled in for funsies.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#53

Post by paulcole »

programmer_guy wrote: post #41

Hey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.

"The last time I checked the team page on the site, Michael changed his profile picture to a bulldog"

http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/

Coincidence?

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#54

Post by pyre »

programmer_guy wrote: post #41

Hey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.

> Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article.

So you don't have a CEO whose headshot in the Team page is a bulldog? Or a Facebook page full of SpongeBob memes for that matter?

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#55

Post by 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.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#56

Post by ef4 »

GuiA wrote: post #14

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 fr…

> It's pretty much a rite of passage here... most people have or will

That's pretty silly. Plenty of people working in startups never put themselves through that kind of BS.

There are at last two obvious strategies for avoiding the whole problem: (1) be a founder, (2) work in a more established tech company until you have the experience, personal network, and finances to intelligent pick a startup to work for.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#57

Post by Waterluvian »

programmer_guy wrote: post #41

Hey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.

Stupid or liar.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#58

Post by xiphias »

chejazi wrote: post #16

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

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.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#60

Post by MichaelBurge »

programmer_guy wrote: post #41

Hey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.

You do have someone matching the description in the article. Here's a description from the article:

"The last time I checked the team page on the site, Michael changed his profile picture to a bulldog."

On your staff page, your CEO is using a picture of a bulldog:

http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/

In case they change it, it's also this image: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/563942218440798208/hmNB...

There also appear to be 9 people with Chinese names and pictures, which matches the article.

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