A Famous Singer Owes Me Money

I am so mad I have to get this off my chest!

A famous singer I worked for way back in April and May hasn’t paid me for my work. He paid one hundred dollars in June and that was it! He told me in email that he doesn’t know ‘what was wrong with his Paypal, why only one hundred dollars went in and that the rest will follow by July”

It’s almost the end of August and still he hasn’t paid me.

What to do? I contacted his brother for help. Of course, I would ask help from his brother as he was the one who recommended me to work for his sleazeball brother.

And then I get this chat response from his assistant:

” the boss is very upset that I have aggressively let everyone knows that he hasn’t paid me. He knows and he will pay “

HELLOOOO!…HE is the one upset? how does he think I feel???? Does he think I am loaded and that he can be on credit until when he feels like paying? Try doing that to an American worker and see what happens!

Besides I only told his brother about it and he thinks everyone knows? how can he be in showbiz with an attitude like that?

It’s funny the way he thinks, he owes me for services rendered and he doesn’t want me to tell people that he still owe me. He is upset that I told his brother but he doesn’t feel how upset I am because he hasn’t paid me!

Talk about reversal of perception!

What an IDIOT! The ‘boss” is an idiot already plus the “idiot” assistant is more of an “idiot” because she delivered the message is such a self-righteous way! Like I have committed a big sin in informing “everyone” that the”boss” still owes me!

I am giving him one last chance and if he doesn’t pay me by first week of September I am really going to report him to BBC and post his scamming name at Craigslist so “everyone” will know!

Home Shopping CLub – another rip off company

I am not sure how many people have heard of this company since they do not have a website, but I can guarantee you that they are a rip-off company. You can read my post about them below:

http://virtualthoughts.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/dream-or-reality/

http://virtualthoughts.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/dream-or-reality-update/

To continue with the post, after several weeks again, I got an agent interested to work with him. So we started the training, him, me and the agent. At first it was going great, the agent got the hang of it and was able to close several deals for the company. There were several times that she was able to reach the quota for the day so there were bonuses installed for her.

The thing is, the guy cannot pay us yet. He said his credit card is being reissued by the bank and thus I can continue to send in worked invoice and he will just pay right after he will get his credit card. I should have seen this coming, but I have talked to him several times on the phone and we were more like friends than virtual workers. He even offered to help me if I need anything in the States, he was also planning to come here to do a joint venture with me.

And then after two and a half months of working, my agent decided to resign, this is because she told me she doesn’t trust the company and she doesn’t trust the big boss himself. She said how come he hasn’t paid me yet? I paid my all my staff religiously every 15th and 30th of the month but the client hasn’t paid me a cent!

Anyway, to make the long story short, the agent said that after two and a half months of semi telemarketing calls, she felt that there are a lot of loopholes in the script and in the presentation. The questions presented to her by the prospective clients weren’t answered or addressed by the company, and instead she got reprimanded for those questions.

So we informed the client of her decision. Naturally he was mad, but how can you get somebody to work for a company she doesn’t believe it or trust in? here is the worst part:

The client then told me that he doubts if the agent had really been working or if she had done any calls. Answer, if she hasn’t been doing any calls, where will she gets all these rebuttals regarding the promotion?  He said that she has wasted his time etc etc etc. what about me? I trained her, I paid for internet connection, electricity and her salary and I still haven’t gotten paid by him. Hey!!! wait a minute, for the past few months he has nothing but praises for her, he told me that she is doing great and she has been able to close several deals and now he is questioning her integrity??? give us all some credit here.

Anyway, he said that he will pay me before July 27th as I will be leaving for my hometown that day. Need I say I never heard from him again?? I have sent numerous emails, left numerous phone messages, my sister in the US has been also contacting him and still nothing.

what can I say? he has ripped us off!!! Since my agent isn’t working for him, he doesn’t feel the need to honor his agreement with me. No pay for me and no bonuses for my agent too!!!!!! What a scammer!!!!!

Everytime I think about our conversations and how I get assured by him everytime that he will pay that if I haven’t heard from him in weeks, I need not fear because when he comes back everything will be taken cared of. What a bunch of bullshit!!!!

The lesson here is, make sure you get paid on time, tell the clients if they do not pay on time, like a jukebox you will stop working asap!!

So virtual folks, be aware, the name of the company is Home Shopping Club, the business is giving out free promotional gifts like luxury watches etc and the name of the guy is Terence Banks.

www.needapair.com – shady bz by cheats

The time has come for me to resign myself to the fact that the person I consider an online friend has cheated me for the second or third time.

If you have read my post “Scammed Again by a Returning Client”, you will see that I didn’t mention any names. This is because that I still harbor the hope that somehow, my “online friend” will keep his word and pay me for services rendered. Unfortunately, after so many empty promises, he is proven himself to be a worthless employer and a much worthless “friend”.

So I am going to expose him so that virtual workers will know.

My dear virtual colleagues, please beware of this site http://www.needapair.com. This site originates from http://www.popularkicks.com which is now non-existent. I started working for the owner Andrew Marvin Lydner last March 15 – May 9 and so far has received only a portion of the payment. The whole payment for march 15 – April 15 hasn’t been paid. He told me that his mother Mrs. Pauline Brown of GA, who is a school teacher was the one handling the company’s finances. I called up his mom and she kept promising to pay me but again, they were all empty promises. I have also sent them numerous emails and no reply.

The mother sent me a reply a few weeks ago to tell me that I worked for his son, so better asked him for the payment. So this is their trick now huh? to pass me from one to the other. The son didn’t bother to answer all my emails and just ignored me at msn or gmail chats!

As for those of you who are shoes fanatics out there, don’t bother ordering from this website too, they don’t have a customer service team, so you can bet all your questions, complains and concerns will not be answered. If your orders get lost along the way, don’t expect a solution to that. If the shoes’ size does not fit, don’t expect it to be changed.

In short, this website is not only shady but the people behind it are irresponsible. When I worked for it, I was the one who kept harping at the owner to do something about it, I was the one who was tracking all the orders from China to US.

If you think the mother may be better than the son, since she is a school teacher and must have all the moral values and work ethics line up, you can think again, both are of the same breed – Cheats!

Scammed Again by a Returning Client

What can I say? Am I a sucker or what?

I have this client way back 2005. He owns an online store that sells shoes. I worked for him as customer service email support. You cannot imagine the amount of emails we receive everyday, more than a hundred, and I have to clean them all up in a day cause I don’t want clients complaining us about having bad customer service. In the long run, I couldn’t handle it myself because there just so many of them, complaints, request, inquiry and refund emails. So I took on 2 more customer service agent to help me with the work and we manage to organize everything and get the emails answered back within 24 hours.

The problem was, this client of mine is always late on payment, sometimes he is even a month late. So I have to shell out the payment for my assistant agents, which is a tiresome thing on my budget. I resigned from the job in the long run, cause the client is a very irresponsible person, every time I try to reach him via chat, email or phone call regarding problems with the shipment, he never responded. I mean where can you find a Virtual employee always hounding the employer regarding problems to his own business? Worse, during our last few weeks, he didn’t pay us.

Within the three years, once in a while, he would pop up in my messenger and request me to work for him again. Of course, i said no.

Last March 2008, he asked me to work again and promised that this time it will be different etc, etc, etc. And idiot that I am, I believe him, because he told me I will be working with his mom. Hey, his mom may be a better person and a better businesswoman than he is. I checked his website and read through everything, and it showed an intelligent person behind it, which is his mom. Besides, his mom is a teacher you know, so there is this amount of respectability in there.

But hey, what do you know? The mom turns out to be like her son. She promises to pay and then nothing, didn’t respond to my email and didn’t answer the phone. What kind of teacher America has now? Of course, this is not a general statement, but hey, she is a teacher! I have always hold teachers in the highest regards and she is giving them a bad name.

So I worked from March 15 – May 9 and didn’t even get any payment, except for the downpayment of 40% I asked from the total agreed working pay at the start of the month. What a bunch of cheats!

The son promises to pay, he said he will not scammed me, but what am I supposed to think if I don’t receive any word or update from them two?

The lesson of this experience is – once bitten, twice should really be shy!

Almost Got Scammed! by Harris Black aka Martin Feldman

Almost everyday, I checked out Craigslist for any new job postings. One is to see if there are new work opportunities and the other is to check what other tasks people are outsourcing. The second reason for checking Craigslist is so I can update and upgrade myself. It doesn’t pay to be a stick in the mud. All of us has to keep up with the ever changing time and technology.

I was checking through the ads in Bangalore when I found an online job that I really like, which is answering emails. The owner of the ad said that he gets around 500-1,000 emails a day and need someone to help him answer all the emails. So I applied for the job. I got a response that very day. But then, I was a little suspicious because the response was a scripted one. Usually, the business or individuals who responds to the job ads reply in a more personal manner.

The name of the CEO is Martin Feldman and his website is www.careerexperts.org.

He gave me a series of email responses, four different emails to be exact. Based on the email he gave me, he is a recruiter and has been operating for 15 years already in North America. My question is, if he is a recruiter in North America, then why is he based in Asia as he told me? Another question is, if he has a list of the jobs available, then why is his site promoting writing resume? This doesn’t fit at all. I sent him 2 emails asking him if there are really jobs for the job applicants. I didn’t receive an answer for that.

My job was to post in various cities in Craigslist, and then reply back to the emails I have received with the first document. Then when the job applicants reply again, I am to send another scripted email. This all sound very fishy to me.

So what I did, I googled his name and viola, it’s confirmed, he is a scam artist. His real name is Harris Black and you can read all about him in http://www.harrisblackwatch.com/

Well I am glad that after four years of working online, I am not so naive after all. I must admit that I got scammed several times when I was starting out and thank God, I was able to find out info about this guy so I do not help him scam other people.