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Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

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Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#301

Post by alexbock »

_asummers wrote: post #291
brianwawok wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#302

Post by toss1 »

jomamaxx wrote: post #242
elithrar wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can invoice the company. It's not a big deal. Nonononono. You're hired as an employee. There is a legal and ethical agreement for them to pay you at the intervals agreed upon in your contract. There are no ifs or buts about it, no invoicing them, no excuses for 'just started'. Payroll is NOT hard.

"Nonononono. You're hired as an employee. There is a legal and ethical agreement for them to pay you at the intervals agreed upon in your contract. There are no ifs or buts about it, no invoicing them, no excuses for 'just started'. Payroll is NOT hard." No - you are completely wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong - or even remotely immoral - about paying using invoicing while a company gets going. It's common an…

You are spreading very bad MIS-information, and it doesn't matter why -- stop it.

The fact, for a number of different states in which I've employed people (including MA, CA, NH...) is that there are very specific requirements for hiring people, and

NO, YOU CANNOT SIMPLY "pay using invoicing while a company gets going".

Federal and state laws specify that all employees are W2 status, and you are REQUIRED to withhold taxes. Management is even personally on the hook for these tax liabilities.

There are exceptions under certain limited criteria in which you can hire people as outside contractors -- commonly referred to as "1099s" -- the Federal laws are quite tight (the famous '20 questions'), and state laws are even tighter. E.g., in MA you cannot hire any person who performs core functions of your company as a 1099, so if your company writes software you cannot hire anyone to work on that software as a 1099 (but you could hire someone to, say, customize your office accounting package as long as you are only using it). Yes, it is that tight.

Just because some founders decide to break the law, and you would be happy to go along with them, does not make it legal.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#305

Post by 20yrs_no_equity »

gcb0 wrote: post #270
GuiA wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expl…

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…

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.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#306

Post by [deleted] »

wpietri wrote: post #285
kelukelugames wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. People have no incentive to change unless we name names.

However much I want to see these culprits caught and punished, I think it's a lot to ask a jobless, possibly homeless person to attract retribution from people who have already proven that they will do absolutely anything to maintain the appearance of success. Even when you win, bogus lawsuits are expensive and painful to sort out. My mom was sued after a business deal went south. Seeing the judge find for her on all…

[deleted]

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#308

Post by 20yrs_no_equity »

ef4 wrote: post #56
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.

This is good advice, but I think everyone is best suited to doing number 2 before number 1. Most people are not ready to be a founder right out of the gate, and that's where a lot of the douchebag founder horror stories come from. Not because they want to be douchebags, just because they are so arrogant.

One should spend five years building stuff before becoming a CEO.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#309

Post by 20yrs_no_equity »

hobs wrote: post #76
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…

Often the worst companies put pressure on their employees to give fake positive surveys and pretend their company is a great place to work to trick people into a year or two while management moves on. Seen it happen at a company that was voted top xx best places to work for a few years running in the local press.

I've seen HR at a major abuser massage Glassdoor rankings by disputing/threatening them with legal action for negative reviews and shilling/creating fake accounts to put in positive reviews. I believe Glassdoors policy is that they are not interested in lawsuits, so all it takes is a letter from a lawyer. Maybe even less than that.
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