Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 619 posts

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#471

Post by ryandrake »

brianwawok wrote: post #215
planteen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

> 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?

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#472

Post by phxrsg »

jomamaxx wrote: post #449
manigandham wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a big deal, running a business requires following the law. There is no special "startup" case where you're allowed to be loose on your obligations. Accurate payroll costs somewhere between $50-100 per month per employee with dozens of great vendors available. This is an incredibly trivial cost (especially compared to the fines for breaking these laws) and means there's no excuse to not have things in order. If…

"It is a big deal, running a business requires following the law." Again - I would suggest that maybe you have never started a company or done payroll, or paid anyone yourself. It is not required to have 'payroll' to pay individuals for services rendered, nor have properly managed books. I once created a 'side company' to manage some IP. The company had no employees. All participants (there were five of us over time,…

You're right, in that case. In the case of contractors invoicing is normal and legally acceptable. In the use case you mention here, contractors are appropriate and legal.

It is, however, illegal to pay employees like contractors. When you are hired to work full time for a start up you almost always meet the test of being an employee. The author of this article did. It IS therefore illegal to not give her a paystub or ask her to invoice.

This is generalizable to start ups. I've worked for start ups. Every time I was hired as an employee and treated as one. It would have been a red flag and illegal for them not to pay me as an employee.

Again, everything you're saying for the most part is true if you're talking about paying IC's. Where you are demonstrably wrong is assuming that you can treat start up employees as ICs You can't. Therefore doing what you're claiming is "normal" is actually illegal on many levels.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#473

Post by snsr »

funkyy wrote: post #173
bvanslyke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The website doesn't look like anything that would come out from a team of developers/designer. It looks like one man side project really...

It's profoundly terrible.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#476

Post by newacct510510 »

kyrias wrote: post #185
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.

Disregarding everything else pointed out in this thread, there's also the part where the website for the older name of the company, 1for.one, still lists Penny Kim as the Marketing Director: http://web.1for.one/digital-press-kit/ And, just in case they now decide to remove that, I also saved it to the wayback machine, available here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160829104022/http://web.1for.o... So good try, scumbag…

https://twitter.com/ADP/status/751377837656014852

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#477

Post by newacct510510 »

Animats wrote: post #105

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.

https://twitter.com/ADP/status/751377837656014852

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#478

Post by netmobs »

mugenjin9 wrote: post #414
readitmeow wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just took down the facebook page edit: its back up

Haha wow here is what they wrote before they took it down http://imgur.com/a/Tf5bM

While $50K sounds like a lot of money, it actually sounds reasonable for 3 months severance + back pay + her "signing bonus" (relocation).

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#479

Post by st3v3r »

Chris2048 wrote: post #456
st3v3r wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No. Nada. Wrong. False. Truth-through-repetition. Have a nice nice life distancing yourself from any responsibility.

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.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#480

Post by 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.

Post reply on HN