Work related scams hit home
by Jan Quintrall, President/CEO, BBB
jquintrall@spokane.bbb.orgfor the Spokesman Review, 6/27/10
Working at the BBB is never boring. Just when I think I have seen it all, a new way to separate people from their money or information surfaces, and I shake my head in amazement. Feeling cynical is easy when so many people are duped in ways they should have seen coming, but when I step back and understand where the victims stand in life, it becomes a bit easier to offer empathy.
The favorite rip offs these days involve work or contracts. No, not just work-at-home scams targeting the unemployed; due to the current headlines, they now include questionable promises of government contracts to out of area contractors. In the last 10 days, we have seen two elaborate and apparently successful scams target our region.
The first one brought national attention to the Yakama Nation in the wake of the oil spill--unproven promises of high paying jobs wait in the Gulf for anyone with any skill level. A couple of supposed do-gooders, Christino Rosado Senior and Junior (father and son), offered to pay room and board for about 10% of the Yakama Tribal Nation (the tribe states that over 800 people signed up), claiming they would transport any folks who signed up to the Gulf, where they would earn $40 per hour cleaning up, cooking or providing other support services to BP’s cleanup efforts. The Rosado’s passed out fliers, and asked enlistees to provide their names and addresses, social security numbers, tribal ID #s, and to open a bank account if they didn’t already have one.
The first bus to Louisiana was slated to leave last Thursday morning from the Res, but that bus never transpired. It was stated that Rosado didn’t allow a bus to show because he and his crew hadn’t yet secured the required insurance for each hire. Others were and still are skeptical that anything will come of this offer, while others still hold out hope. But, in the meantime, because of the concerted efforts and communication between tribal authorities, the BBB, the FBI, and the Washington Attorney General’s office, tribal leaders were armed with a slew of information and background attempting to convince those left stranded that they should think twice about heading into “the unknown.”
This father and son pair claim that it will front all costs (for nearly 1,000 people some reports state), and wait for BP to pay them back (within 30 days) has a history of unfulfilled promises to back it. The last, and most recent Rosado business model involving a juice and cheese factory in Oregon City purported to one day employ 300 people. Sadly, that pipedream never panned out.
Back to the bus to the Gulf—Many of these applicants quit minimum wage jobs anticipating the riches of the Gulf, and helping Mother Earth. Rosado was no stranger to these tribal members. He had built a friendship with tribal member, Ken James Bear, whom he had purchased salmon from for years. So, is this, perhaps, an example of “friendly fraud”? That’s what we call a relationship that is crafted and developed for the sole purpose of someone wishing to take advantage of others, usually for economic gain. We see it over and over again with certain demographics: ethnic groups, church affiliations. We all think at some level, “How can someone I know ever victimize me?” But, sadly, we are wrong to think nothing will ever happen to us, because it can.
The BBB spent a large part of late last week investigating this situation, fact gathering, speaking with key players involved. Because BBB was tipped off early, we hopefully helped assist those who needed it so the confusion and damage did not run too deep. Short of the downside: the potential of ID theft, authorities are still not exactly sure what the Rosado’s are up to, and that is why the tribe launched an investigation into these happenings.
The second offer came from what looks like the US Department of Transportation. Letters arrived via fax telling local contractors they were “registered prospective contractors,” but that some financial information was missing from the file. Due to privacy laws, the government agency needed a release of financial information to move ahead with any procurement decisions. The fax looks quite official and the logo looks like USDOT, but has a few missing items. They even provide a fax number so you can fax back all your bank account details, your tax ID numbers, the signatures of two officers and a cover page with your logo. This would, of course, be all scammers would need to efficiently steal the identity of the company. It happens all the time.
Oh, how could anyone fall for any of this? I often ask that question. But when you walk a block or two in someone else’s work boots you can better understand. If you are one of the large number of unemployed contractors, or one who has seen very few jobs in the last 18 months, you begin to look for opportunity in places you probably didn’t consider before. You begin to want to believe; to ignore those red flags and nagging doubts. The need to believe and trust a solution becomes stronger than common sense. Desperate people make desperate decisions, which makes scam artists more successful.
It is especially in times like these, when we don’t want to, that we need to slow down, double-check, and investigate before we invest. As always, start with trust by going to www.bbb.org for any information the Better Business Bureau can provide.
Rewarding Everything Creates Slackers
by Jan Quintrall, President/CEO, BBB jquintrall@spokane.bbb.org
for the Spokesman Review, 6/13/2011
The idea for this column came from a letter I recently received from a school district in our three-state service area. They wanted the BBB to make a cash donation to help pay for prizes. The program runs from January through the end of the school year and offers prizes to students who are not tardy or absent in 10 segments of ten days each. Yes, if you show up and on time for TEN FULL DAYS you get rewarded! The letter tells me that poor attendance is the number one factor why students do not graduate from high school.
OK, I get rewarding good behavior, but is this a long term solution? Where are the parents in this equation? When did it become the school’s job to focus this kind of attention and resources just to get kids to show up?
I recently became aware of the following story. It was “Jeff’s” first serious job, and we all know that it’s seldom viewed as a career, just as a first step. When the boss called Jeff into his office he was nervous to say the least. But the boss had a big smile on his face which caused Jeff to relax a bit. He took the chair he was invited to sit in and wondered what the boss would have to say. After all, he’d only been on the job for six weeks.
His boss began to rave about what a great addition to the team Jeff is. He talked about his work ethic, getting there well before it was time to clock in, seeing what needs to be done, asking good questions and really taking care of the customers. Jeff was a bit shocked and later that night called his sister to debrief. They both agreed that this is just normally what you do in life and could not understand why this boss was so appreciative. Sadly, it is probably because Jeff’s and his sister’s levels of common sense and personal responsibility do not occur often enough anymore.
Yes, as employers we are excited to have someone join the team who understands expectations, gets to work on time every day and really sees the big picture. Critical thinking and systematic problem solving are skills that fewer and fewer people seem to possess. Many entry-level staffers expect big paychecks and ultimate flexibility in their responsibilities from day one. Everyone is a winner! Rewards are expected for the simplest tasks and some expect a parade if they hit one goal or complete a project.
Learning that for every action there are ramifications and then taking responsibility for your actions should start at home and should be continued at school. Something is very broken. Are we so focused on reducing dropout rates that we are creating long term problems?
Take a kid who gets rewarded for perfect attendance in ten-day batches. Fast forward to college and you have created a monster. My husband teaches at a private college. His class is built around participation and he made it clear to the students that they could miss two classes without penalty. But after that, unless there was a special circumstance, each absence would reduce their final grade by half a grade. One student missed seven classes, sinking his grade to a D. He challenged the grade and thought it punitive to reduce the grade because he failed to live up to his responsibility to attend class! How dare he ask so much from a student?
Later on, imagine hiring a student like this to work for you. You might be baffled as to why she can’t seem to make it to work on time, or five days in a row. He might be shocked to receive a poor performance review due to spotty attendance and continue to be surprised when he is terminated because the behavior did not change. After all, they got prizes when they made it to school 10 days in a row.
Sometimes you need to make sure you are not so focused on one statistic that you lose perspective as to the big picture. Let’s reward true excellence and not mediocrity. Let’s quit lowering the bar.