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Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

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Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#111
post #109

> 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.

> 'filled' with typos and grammatical errors.

icymi

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#112

"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.

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."

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#113
post #54

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?

[deleted]

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#114
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…

Agreed. Startups are incredibly hard, and this can bring out the best in people... or the worst. Just like you, I'm early on in my career. I appreciate the incredibly valuable and lifelong lessons that I've learned from them. I feel that in the long run I'll be better off for them since I know exactly what to look for to identify bad situations before I'm in them, and how to protect myself if I do end up in one. Most…

Biggest mistake is thinking you have to "get" experience.

I'm 42 and at the other end of the scale. To me the line now that "it's a good learning experience" and "I'll know better in the future" are just ways of saying "I'm making mistakes".

From someone who has been there and done that, best not to make the mistakes in the first place. I had strong ethics to begin with and compromised them many times because I thought that's what you had to do to get on. I was wrong.

Learn from listening to experience and watching others fail or succeed, much smarter.

You can never have enough advice before making decisions. Find successful people you trust and listen to them.

Much easier than having to go through your own hassles.

You'll be happier.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#115

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

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

There are work VISA's also for people that have pending H1-B applications which is what I think OP meant. It would also explain why the employees weren't able to leave easily since the H1-B's are pending.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#116

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.

This is so transparent (pun intended) and clumsy that it's hilarious. You would think someone supposedly having several million in net worth could do better.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#117

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

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

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.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Yes, you definitely couldn't tell the immigration agent that you have an H1B and they'll let you through without checking.

However, if the founders are willing to forge money transfer receipts, and given all the other hijinks in the post, I wouldn't put it beyond them to bring over engineers on a tourist visa, instruct them to not tell immigration they're coming to work for some BS reason, and then mislead them by telling them that their H1B is being processed when in fact it isn't. Or something along those lines.

I really feel bad for them, along with the author of the article.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#119

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 app…

Home page - https://archive.is/E3EYc Team page - https://archive.is/zeTL1 Blog page - https://archive.is/Wua5D

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#120
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…

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.

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