My husband and I live in Ontario Canada. We've just discovered that our current employer is a scam artist, his specialty appears to be vacation scams. We've been working there for 2 weeks, and within 4 days of being employed he promoted me to a management role.

He convinced my husband and I that he was desperately in need of funds because of problems doing a transfer because of a banking holiday etc... In any event he's managed to get $600 out of us, plus what's owed to us for legitimate work.

Now we came to find out about his history of scamming due to an ex employee saying something to us, we went home and looked up his name and it turns out he spent 3 years in prison for scamming over $130,000 selling time shares.

I've already spoken with the bank about the cheques he had us deposit, and they said although we will have to repay the funds assuming they bounce (which we're 99% certain they will), we will not be in any legal trouble as we honestly had no idea what was going on.

Luckily for us, he spent a lot of time outside of the office and the majority of communication has been done via email, so we have tons of proof about all sorts of things.

What we need to know is how do we go about getting paid for the work that we've done, it's not just us, there are 8 other employees, some who have been there longer than us.

How should we proceed from here? We are looking for any and all advice.

Please no judgements, we realize now looking back through emails and previous conversations that there were red flags, we just didn't see them at the time.

**I'd also like to note that prior to him taking over the small survey/appointment booking office that we work at... this place was run by another scam artist who had about 30 employees, one day they were open the next day they were gone and none of those people got paid. Guess what? It's his partner in crime and they've been doing this for years**

So a lot of people are owed a lot of money and we need advice before going to the police.

Most likely unless he pays you, you will not get paid, sorry,

You already know that I am sure,

Also, owe money back for what checks, that bounce ?

But scam artist often keep a operation going for months, and they hire and pay people all the time, and they will often get paid, till the last couple of week or month.

I assume you have quit the job, and now just need to look and find a new one.
Sorry, but unless he pays you, as part of keeping a legit front for a while, you are just not gong to be paid.

You may sue him, but most likely never see any money

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

most likely unless he pays you, you will not get paid, sorry,

you already know that I am sure,

Also, owe money back for what checks, that bounce ?

but scam artist often keep a operation going for months, and they hire and pay people all the time, and they will often get paid, till the last couple of week or month.

I assume you have quit the job, and now just need to look and find a new one.
sorry, but unless he pays you, as part of keeping a legit front for a while, you are just not gong to be paid.

You may sue him, but most likely never see any money

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We're both still working there. I'm supposed to open in the morning and conduct hiring interviews. We don't know what to do.

As far as the cheques go that I'm referring to, he made up these excuses saying that his money was on hold, or he was having trouble getting a bank transfer done... he wrote cheques payable to me and had me cash them and give him the money.

I have emails showing proof. I've already spoken with the bank who has stated that I will owe the money back to the bank but that I'm not in any legal danger. We just discovered this information hours ago, so both myself and my husband have gone through a myriad of emotions. I thought he's my boss, he's newer to the area, banking holidays etc... crap happens. He never gave a me a reason to not trust him. So I thought it wouldn't hurt to do him the favor. Except assuming those cheques don't clear, we now owe our bank $600 that we don't have.

What should we do, continue working till we get our paycheque, cash it and then report him?

I don't know if he's still scamming, but everything I've pulled up about him and companies that he's associated with seems to span the last decade, I have to assume he's not changed, and its only a matter of time before we get completely screwed over.

Let me be clear that neither myself nor my husband or the 8 employees that I oversee have anything to do with sales, we are strictly surveyors and appointment bookers. Nothing more. I don't issue pay, I don't take funds from anyone, I don't know what product he's selling as he states that the less I know the better off I am on the phone when booking appointments.

I'm confused, not sure where to go from here. We can't go on assistance, we don't want to. We need our pays till we can find something else.

We were thinking is the cheques clear, stay on till next pay, at the same time gather all information about him, his partners and business info in the office, inform everyone else that works there after payday and go to the police and bbbc.

Do you have any recommendations now that this information is here for you to review?

What you don't understand is this guy has no money. He operates by scamming people out of money. Whatever money he has is probably well protected.

The only way you get paid is if he's prosecuted and forced to pay restitution. You need to go to your local prosecutor's office immediately and discuss with them what you should do.

... and don't go in to open the office. Face the facts.

The BBC is not going to be of any use. If anything, spend time with other employees past and present to take action as a group with the police and labor dept, and try to write some sort of blog naming names.

And now that you know it is a scam, you may be part of criminal activity if you continue and also do not report it to police

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

And now that you know it is a scam, you may be part of criminal activity if you continue and also do not report it to police

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Since my boss is never in the office, I snooped around for half my shift, I can't find any documentation with his name on it, nor has he sold any packages since this staff was hired on.

The company is in the other guys name, the one who closed up and left a bunch of people without pay.

I don't have proof that they are doing anything wrong right now, I've just seen that my boss was in prison for 3 years for vacation scams, well that and there are a lot of complaints about them on various forums under older companies that one or both of them ran.

What I did was inform the other manager in the office and then when everyone else came in we showed them what we had found and asked what everyone wanted to do.

We can't prove at this point in time that anything illegal is going on. At least not as far as the business is concerned.

I can tell you that the cheque my boss wrote me from his personal account did bounce as I'm sure the others no doubt will. I've already spoken with my bank about this as well.

I confronted my boss via email today regarding the issue and told him he had 24 hrs to rectify the situation, I just made it sound far worse than what it currently is. So hopefully he fixes that.

As a group we will be going to the police about him and the others that we know about, unfortunately we only know for sure where he is staying and not where the other people are located.

I did Google to see if any of them were wanted, warrants etc and nothing came up.