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I was approached by a company but I feel like I'm getting scammed
FeelingUneasy
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A company called me up after I posted my resume on a jobsite and said they were interested in offering me a job.
The company is called Unbounded Solutions. Since I am unemployed right now, I was quite happy to look into it but after reading around, I am very uneasy about taking this position.
You can check glassdoor yourself for info about the company, but the reviews are all over the place. I can't figure out if it is paid shills for the company posting good stuff or bitter people posting the bad stuff (probably is both). Some of the stuff is extremely troubling to me, like the resume stuff as well as the diversity of opinion on their support. There is also the fact I need to sign with them for 2 years or have to pay the cost of their training.
And then, personally, there is my own experience. I have done the interviews but it all feels so... scammy. I am no high flyer and my resume reflects that, so it was weird to be called in the first place. The interview process itself was also very brief and not very in-depth.
However, I am still unemployed. The work is something I have an interest in. Working as a consultant would give me lots of experience in different jobs. And two years isn't that long.
Where do I go from here? I am completely conflicted on things so I turn to you guys. The best advice would be someone who has worked there or knows someone who has worked there. Possibly someone who has experience with these types of companies? Any advice would be appreciated.
The company is called Unbounded Solutions. Since I am unemployed right now, I was quite happy to look into it but after reading around, I am very uneasy about taking this position.
You can check glassdoor yourself for info about the company, but the reviews are all over the place. I can't figure out if it is paid shills for the company posting good stuff or bitter people posting the bad stuff (probably is both). Some of the stuff is extremely troubling to me, like the resume stuff as well as the diversity of opinion on their support. There is also the fact I need to sign with them for 2 years or have to pay the cost of their training.
And then, personally, there is my own experience. I have done the interviews but it all feels so... scammy. I am no high flyer and my resume reflects that, so it was weird to be called in the first place. The interview process itself was also very brief and not very in-depth.
However, I am still unemployed. The work is something I have an interest in. Working as a consultant would give me lots of experience in different jobs. And two years isn't that long.
Where do I go from here? I am completely conflicted on things so I turn to you guys. The best advice would be someone who has worked there or knows someone who has worked there. Possibly someone who has experience with these types of companies? Any advice would be appreciated.
FeelingUneasy on
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To put it another way, if you were applying to your dream job would you want this on your resume? How would your future employer look at the position? If it comes off as a scam-based company to you at first blush, what would an established employer in your ideal field think when they chase down your reference?
Being unemployed sucks. Being preyed upon for your desperation won't fix that. I'd recommend you keep looking for something better. The gut test always applies. If you feel like it is a scam, it usually is.
Trust your gut.
Once you get done they'll turn you around to do to other people exactly what they did to you. There is no product, just scamming people out of money all the way down.
There's your concrete warning sign right there. Real businesses don't pull that shit. Also two years is crazy. Even like a paid placement/hiring agency will only have a 6 mo. or maybe a year requirement. Never for in-house training.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I don't think it is specifically this type of scam but instead one similar for the programmer industry. But the things is, the only way they can claim money from me is if I don't stay the full 2 years. I don't have to pay anything unless I break the contract.
I can't figure out why they need that 2 year contract in there though. Is the work so shit people jump ship immediately? Is there some unmentioned work requirement that makes the work way more unappetising than it appears?
I just don't know. My gut says no but my brain is telling me about bills, groceries, etc...
Best case scenario: If the purpose of the 2-year contract is not a scam, then the job has such an awful attrition rate and environment that they can't keep people in the position and are addressing that in a negative fashion rather than correcting their workplace problems. Worst case scenario: what your gut is telling you multiplied by a bunch.
Have you tried going through a temp agency or using a local job-mediation group for OJT and placement? Very few employers of value will seek you out, while a good deal of decent employers rely upon local agencies to staff their entry level positions. You may be much better served in finding gainful employment. You may also want to consider oblique hiring in your field. You are a programmer, I'm assuming. Many companies that do not need programming hire IT-related professionals for a wide range of computer related services. While you hunt for a solid programming job getting part time tech-support work with two or three small businesses in your area may be a plausible solution for short term bill paying.
I would, however, trust your gut, and that you need to pay them for training with either money or two years of your life sounds really, really offputting.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
They said they were interested in offering a job? Not an interview or anything, a straight up job?
Nothing's that easy.
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No real job does this. It's painful to say no to a job, but then this isn't really a job.
This. My workplace pays people overtime to come in and update their first aid, cpr, customer service training, self defense/handcuffing technique (I'm part of administration for a sizable security team), etc. All useful skills, good to have updated and many look snazzy on a resume. Some of it is quite expensive, but our people have no such stipulations about being on board for X years or having to pay back money in any regard.
This is a scam. Whatever the reason, even if it's a 'real job', the fact that they tell you this up front leads me to believe it's meant to either force people to stay in a negative/underpaid work position/environment, or they hope/expect to have a high turnover and this lets them bring people in, work them hard as far as they can, and then when you're fired or quit they try to recoup some of what they've paid you in those weeks or months.
You can do better.
But it's not required for the job. It's more like, "I want to pursue another master's, so you'll pay for it" and they make you pay them back if you get below a B average or leave the company within the year.
At this point I don't see the downside in just laying the concerns you have with the employer. It is not unheard of education costs to require a certain length of stay, though usually that is outside education and not basic job training. So ask what exactly this training is. Do you end with certifications? College credit? Anything that means anything to somebody who isn't this company?
That and asking about more detail on what you'd be doing seem to be risk free ways to confirm or deny your gut feeling.
This place is a scam. Your gut is right. Run - don't walk - away from it. Real companies don't bind you to a two year contract where you will have to repay $10,000-20,000 if you quit.
A better opportunity will come along, but this isn't it.
Go ahead and bring your concerns up with them, but I can almost guarantee you that they will present a slick sales job and tell you it's all standard and ponies and rainbows. It's bullshit.
Trust your gut in this one - this isn't a place you want to be.
I've gotten a few temp jobs this way, actually.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Well that's not entirely true. If I quit my job right now I'd have to repay my relocation costs (easily 10k+), and I've had it before for things like signing bonuses and stuff, but for basics like training? Yeah, very scammy
Yeah that's a clawback. Pretty standard. Things not standard: "Yeah you totally need to pay $5000 for this course to become a sale person for us. And you'll be required to purchase your first set of knives for $100. I don't care who you sell it too, but you pay for your materials out of pocket, each of those knives is worth $50 a piece, I'm offering you a fantastic deal here. Once you sell, that's 100% commission for you. Sweet isn't it? You could totally make $100,000 in the first year if you play your cards right. Tell you what, I'll foot the bill on the training and the knives so long as you promise to sell at least 10 sets and take 5 courses. Just if you decide that this isn't right for you, you'll have to pay it all back. I bet you're thinking it sounds like a scam, it's not! How do you think I ended up here!"
They make their money off exploiting you, not MSRP of a set of knives. They know you're going to bail out after a few months having trouble selling (X) to your extended family. It's basically a pyramid scheme.
You should be weary of any employer that comes looking for you. Let alone one that charges you money to start working for them.
Bail the fuck out.
From what I can gather, this company basically asks their new employees to create fake resumes, claiming that you're capable of things you really aren't, and then has the people they contract out to contact one of their own people that actually DOES, which is who they talk to, who (since he knows his shit) convinces them he's a great employee and then sends you out to the job (anywhere in the country, really). You bullshit around for a while since you don't really know the job, then you leave eventually, they get paid a lot, you get paid some of it, and then they do this all over again. If you want to PM me I can link you a lot of relevant stuff here but the place is ... shady to say the least. I would absolutely not want to be involved in it.
I once went to an "internship" interview, and got a funny feeling about it. Looked up the company's name + scam on Google, and most of the results were the company's pages explaining that, no, it's not a scam. Most of the pages had horrible grammar.
Stay the hell away from any shady operation, and good luck finding a real job.
The whole "what would future employers think" is also a pretty powerful persuader. I wouldn't want something like this tarnishing my CV for my next job.
Thanks for the advice!
First the ugly.
1. They pay you minimum wage while attending their training
2. The housing they provide is a 3 bedroom apt with 3-6 people living there. So you will have a roommate if you are unlucky. The beds are twin beds. I hadn’t slept in a twin bed since I was in the 6th grade so that took getting used to. Also having random roommates for 6-7 weeks will take getting used to. Sharing living areas, bathrooms, kitchen with random folks for weeks on end. If you get some cool people then its ok. If you get weirdoes, then things can get interesting.
3. they have you sign a two year contract where you agree to pay for all lodging and training to the tune of 12K if you bolt before the two years is up. they sort of prorate it though. if you stay one year, then you only pay 6K. From what I heard , the contract doesn’t hold water legally so they will have a hard time collecting.
4. if you dont bring your own transportation, then you have to take public transportation to the training site. I was told that there would be a daily van shuttle, but this wasn’t true.
5. The training was about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. The instructor/s seemed overworked, disinterested, and often classes were delayed or cancelled altogether because the instructor was being pulled in different directions. The instructor was knowledgeable and appeasing, it’s just the circumstances made it difficult for them. You have periodic homework/projects, but those seem sort of like "busy work". It was almost like they were evaluating the “trainees” based on who they liked, versus technical ability. The batch before me, I heard a guy got let go 5 weeks into training because they didn’t like him. Also a few batches before that, a physically challenged guy was let go mysteriously and it was suspected that he was let go because he didn’t “fit the image” on the client sites. Another guy that I know of, he went to the client site and on the first day, the client realized that he didn’t know what he said he knew and the client let him go on the spot. Instead of them finding him a new assignment for which he was more suitable, they fired him.
6. Towards the end of training they give you a "made up" resume that outlines 5-7 years of experience. That gets kind of shaky when you have a guy who is 24 years old and has a resume with 7 years fulltime experience on a system that costs thousands of dollars. Even further, all of the experience is from random cities and random projects so you have to learn the resume and outright lie about where you have been and where you have worked
7. The deception they ask you to do doesn’t stop there and I partially blame the fortune 500 companies that are getting scammed for this one. Every fortune 500 company has a pool of questions that they ask every job candidate. They somehow get this list from the companies and provide this to the candidates during the phone screen. So you do the phone interview with fictional answers to the questions on projects you have never worked on. Why do fortune 500 companies have these canned questions? who in that company has leaked the questions? At any rate , you will probably pass the interview/s with flying colors because you have the answers to the questions they are going to ask. You are either going to feel like a Hollywood actor or an idiot while talking to the potential client. The only thing real is your name. Fake resume, fake email which isn’t even yours but the companys, fake phone number which is also the company’s, fake experience. Hey, we all have slightly embellished our resumes or experience to make our duties seem more glorious than what they really are, but what they were doing was waayyy over the top. How can you say you worked in Boca Raton, Florida for 8 mos when you have never actually been there. What happens when /if you meet someone from Boca Raton and they ask you questions? Do you say you worked remote while on that assignment the whole time? Then a few days later, another city on your resume comes up in conversation, what do you do then? Say you worked remote for them too? I bring up this scenario because it happened to me. I worked with a guy on my client site team that seemed suspicious. Well, if you pass the interview on friday, they will put you on the first thing smoking to the client on Monday. no vacation or a few days off after training. you go right to the client site. These are large clients too! Coca Cola, Chrysler, Pitney Bowes, Pentagon etc. its amazing that these large companies are getting scammed, or allowing themselves to get scammed. Allowing themselves to get scammed by some over glorious resume that the company puts online, and the clients bite on. If its too good to be true, then it probably is.
9. You arrive at your client site/city and they put you up in a hotel for two weeks. If you dont bring your own transpo to the client city then you are the mercy of that client cities public transportation system. So hear you are , this high paid consultant, well the clients think you are high paid because they are paying big money for you, big money that you most likely will never see. Your cut will be a smaller fraction of that. So you are this high paid consultant that is taking the bus. After all, they drive by you after work with a confused look on their face as they are exiting the parking garage while you are standing at the bus stop in the rain.
10. here is another funny note. They have this "relocation team" to help you transition to your new client city. After your two weeks at the hotel, then you have to find lodging on your own. How does this relocation team assist you? they send you links from craigslist. So you have to call these random people on craigslist that are renting rooms. The home office discourages you signing long term leases on apts because assignments end suddenly sometimes. They won’t reimburse you for a broken lease. So because you have this two week time constraint to find a room for rent where you probably have to share a kitchen and bathroom. While living like this, you think, “well its only two years”. Oh yeah, the two years doesn’t include the 6-7 weeks of training, its calculated by hours worked. I will have to dig out the “contract” to remind myself how that was actually calculated.
11. So , if you are lucky enough to find someone that is renting a room, and you are on a bus line then you are good to go sorta. Again, if you are used to living with random people.
12. On yeah, at the end of your training, after you have passed the client interviews, and before they are going to send you to a client city, they pull you in this room for a "deployment briefing". It’s here that they tell you to memorize the bogus resume they gave you IN DETAIL!!, discourage you from signing any long leases, incompletely explain the layers of companies that are involved in the hiring /contract process (IT Trailblazers? TATA Services?), tell you to NEVER email that home office from the work email you get at the client site and to only use your internet email, only call from your personal cell phone and don’t call from the clients phone, discourage you from developing relationships with your client site coworkers because if you do its more of a chance you will be discovered as a fraud, and how to handle certain situations if the clients start to get suspicious, etc. They don’t pay for your phone or reimburse you for a rental car while at the client site.
the Bad
1. Say you get to your client site on a Monday, then the home office team will call you on Monday or Tuesday night to go over the tasks you will be assigned. In some cases they will actually do the work for you. Sounds crazy but its true.
2. Since you probably have only 6 weeks of experience, and not 7 years like your "resume" says, they encourage you to call them if you are put in a spot at the client site where you are "clueless'. Pray someone picks up the phone.
3. So in essence, you will catch the bus to work, pretend who you say you are while at work for 8-9 hours, then catch the bus home, then study all night boning up on the stuff you had no clue about all while living in a house with randoms. The studying part can be handled. The pretending to be someone else part is exhausting. I am amazed how crooks on the crime shows take on aliases for years because me doing it for a short time drove me batty.
4. Deciding who you tell the truth too. Your resume says you were in Denver Colorado, but you have never visited the city. That can get kind of dicey. I had a cagey guy I worked with and in meetings in front of several people he would ask me random questions about a city that my resume said I had worked in. Good thing I had studied my resume and was able to respond to him fluently and quickly. I don’t have a poker face though so I had no idea if I sounded believable.
5. You are getting an entry level wage even though you are hired at the client at the highest level. Ok for you because you are entry level, bad for the company because they think they are getting a guru.
6. Because you are considered a guru, the client wants you to come in and mentor several teams , lead all the discussions, answer random technical problems/questions on the spot. If you keep answering “let me get back to you on that”, that answer gets old after a while. Then the more technically aware members of your client site team start to get suspicious and then start challenging you. Then you will know the end is near. In this case, it’s almost an advantage to be a non-native born American. At least then you can use the excuse that you didn’t fully understand their questions and claim a language barrier.
7.When they start marketing your fake resume to fortune 500 clients, they ask you to totally erase your prior online job search identities. All monster, all linked in, all dice, etc. They openly tell you that they will market their version of your resume and any prior versions will conflict and thus hinder their job search for you.
The Good
1.Working for this company opened my eyes to how clueless these fortune 500 clients really are. Using this knowledge I have set up my own personal lab with the systems loaded on them, earned some certifications, learned IOS,Iphone, Exchange, SharePoint, Documentum, done some “legit” jobs, and now have a “legit” resume that reflects my real experience. One major disadvantage is I no longer have access to the canned interview questions that the fortune 500 clients ask during their interviews. The only questions I have are the ones that other current and former company employees have given me which is only from 8-10 companies.
2. Because of lack of security at this company I was able to obtain all of their training materials, labs, coursework, assignments that other students have turned in that were left unsecure on a shared network drive. It has been helpful for me. This combined with online resources like youtube, pluralsight, leannowonline have helped me a bit.
3. There is a guy that left this company, without paying the contract back , well shy of the two year commitment, that went to work for Microsoft in Redmond. Pretty impressive. Granted this guy had years of prior programming experience. He was a sharp guy and I wonder how he got roped into an outfit like that company. He had the skills to go to Microsoft from the get go. Unlike me unfortunately.
4.I heard if they let you go, fired, then you mysteriously don’t have to pay back the 12K-14K for housing and training.
5. If you are good at the deception kind of thing, then this might be the spot for you. I watch a lot of shows on Investigative Discovery so I guess there are lots of folks out there that get off on that thrill. If this is you, go for it. I tried it and it didn’t work out for me.
6. All shit aside, here is what you do get. “Free” training on a sought after technology IOS/iphone, documentum, exchange, sharepoint. If you were to pay for this training out of pocket it would be pricey and there is no guarantee of a job after the training you pay for.
7.You are almost 98% guaranteed to get a job when training is over. The 2% that don’t get they blame it on “did you delete all of your online presence?”, or the guys don’t interview well with the script they are given. I have heard some guys , the 2% that don’t get jobs right away, can sit on the bench for weeks. While on the bench I heard you get minimum wage and “free” lodging in the apartment. Once on site you get an entry level salary , between 22- 30 hr.
Welp, that’s pretty much the good the bad and the ugly of it.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
I think we were all too stunned by this shocking exposé to really bother with that. Or that it dug up a thread from mid September. In the face of a post like that, I'll let some shit slide.
That is just outright fraud through and through
You'd think the Fortune 500 companies would get wise and destroy someone who tried to pull that kind of thing. I mean, you can't be that big and not have at least some competent people in the IT department.
Yeah you really need to know what kind of training it is to accurately judge. If the training actually has you end up with a license or degree or certification it's not necessarily a scam.
Edit: Oh didn't notice the date. Point still stands though.