How over 25 People Got Scammed into Working at a Nonexistent Game Company

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/07/how-over-25-people-got-scammed-into-working-at-a-nonexistent-game-company/

by howard941 • 7 years ago

90 68 7 years ago

kotaku.com.au

Iv2• 7 years ago

On my first gig as a freelancer, I had the misfortune to have such a non-paying (almost) nonexistent company as a client. Worked almost two months without getting paid. I almost abandoned freelancing after that.

Since then, I have a rule, that only failed me once: before working a month for a person, work a week or less, get paid.

There are smart scammers who are really devious but those I have met had all kind of pathological problems they were in denial with. I think that most scammers live in a fantasy world.

By forcing them to prove they have money, are ready to pay you and know how to make a bank transfer, you are pruning a lot of them.

Also, and especially in my case where I have several international clients, the "I dont understand the bank transfer got refused" excuse is very common (and sadly, very believable). Having worked through all the troubles of making a payment from their accounts to yours already sets expectations about normal delays.

unicornfinder• 7 years ago

Something a lot of people will suggest is asking for 50% upfront. In my experience genuine clients won't have a problem with this.

d4mi3n• 7 years ago

+1 to this. If 50% is untenable due to large project size or unknown scope, what also works really well is agreeing to big milestones for a project and attaching payment plans/due dates to those milestones. e.g. $5k due upon signing of contract, $10k due upon delivery of feature A, $7k upon delivery of feature B, etc.

sharedfrog• 7 years ago

Can you give a few examples of the problems/denials?

Iv2• 7 years ago

"I have a very strong reputation in the market!" (Yeah, a reputation as a guy who writes fake reviews of his company)

"Everybody wants me to fail." (No, we are all putting overtime because of your bad decisions, but it turns out they were REALLY bad)

"The client was really happy with our demo" (Except for the part where it crashed for half a day and they are threatening legal action)

"I made the software work!" (No, you fixed one minor module because the guy you did not pay slammed the door)

CPLX2• 7 years ago

Don't ever work, at all, without getting paid at least something up front, ever.

Unless you're working in a physical office, or on a platform that handles escrow or similar, of course.

Just don't do it. You will lose literally zero good, profitable opportunities by following this rule.

mdorazio2• 7 years ago

Wait, what? How is this supposed to work for something like consulting? Asking for a retainer up front is often a one-way ticket to a potential client saying "no thanks" and going with someone else. I definitely would have lost many highly profitable opportunities with that approach.

kingofpandora• 7 years ago

At the same time employers are saying "Don't ever pay, at all, without getting at least some work first, ever."

On the whole this is how the world operates. Work then pay.

mikestew• 7 years ago

Your first alarm warning to walk away is the first time payroll is missed. Unless you have some personal attachment to the founders or summat, no amount of "vision" and "passion" is going to make up for the fact that the company is doomed and/or you're being scammed.

If you're not on payroll, as another commentor mentions: get money up front. If that's a problem, walk away. Take a page from my patented School of Hard Knocks: if the relationship starts with money problems, you're not suave enough to salvage it. (Source: almost ten years running a consulting company.)

namanyayg• 7 years ago

I think people miss this because of the Sunken Cost Fallacy.

I've been freelancing 8 years and I can't imagine taking on a project without 50% upfront. The rare instances I missed that, I've lost money -- fortunately not more than a few thousand total.

iamnotacrook• 7 years ago

Is that the correct link? It starts out ok but switches to another page after a second or two.

mighty_bander• 7 years ago

I didn't have a problem, fwiw.

ivberrOg• 7 years ago

the au site explodes if you access with js disabled, try https://kotaku.com/how-over-25-people-got-scammed-into-worki...

EnFinlay• 7 years ago

It's crazy to hear someone pull a scam like that and deny it's scam because they were working hard too.

potatofarmer45• 7 years ago

I hire people via upwork and freelancer to do a lot outsourced non-core tasks for my startup. One of the traits I look for is an immovable demand that 30-50% of a project be paid upfront.

It's a s* test that is a far better indicator of experience and competence than any flashy portfolio and ratings.

herodotus• 7 years ago

It saddens me that there are so many crooks in the world, and that many of them are technically proficient, and that the internet has turned into the perfect platform for crooks, liars, scumbags and cheats.

In 1994, a colleague and I, caught up in the excitement and promise of the Internet and HTML / browsers, gave two 1 hour University-wide lectures about the wonderful promise of what was to come. We made predictions that we thought bordered on crazy (like: one day you will see the things called URLs on buses!). But what we did not foresee is the stinking morass that much of the web has become.

codesushi425• 7 years ago

I will get downvoted for sure. And FWIW, I don't work at a blockchain company. But these issues seem like the type of thing smart contracts with escrow accounts were meant to solve.

Place the payment into an escrow account that pays out to multiple parties on a regular cadence, after milestone etc. Everyone can see there's a balance in the account, and it's guaranteed to be dispersed according to some conditions being met.

_mhr_• 7 years ago

I don't know anything about smart contracts, but how does the smart contract know if a milestone has been met?

jlg23• 7 years ago

Milestones. As a freelancer I have insisted on payment after milestones and it never failed me. That and very strict "no pay, no work" ethics.

The point is: Even when "there is no money", getting someone on board takes time and effort. If that someone makes a credible threat to leave, more often than not suddenly there is money. If not: RUN.

SantalBlush• 7 years ago

The milestone method is very common in the trades, where a lot of builders, etc. are self-employed.

Scams are still a threat in that field though. I was on a job where the client devised ways to hold up suppliers so we'd miss our deadlines and he'd get a discount. I did a 22-hour shift and my boss pulled a few all-nighters to get done on time.

jessaustin3• 7 years ago

A friend of mine worked on a home remodel job for which the contractor expected delays in payment. The job included a fireplace and chimney because the homeowner loved fireplaces. After a couple of weeks the homeowner called to say he would pay the damn bill but in return they had to fix the terrible draw on the fireplace because the house was filling with smoke no matter how the damper was adjusted. Check in hand, the contractor sent my friend up a ladder to drop a rock down the chimney. After the plate glass they had cemented into the flue while building the chimney was broken, the draw was fine...

dvh• 7 years ago

I was shortly working with similar guy, although from the day one it was free/hobby project. He as a leader couldn't keep focus, he was talking about mountains 200 miles north somewhere at 5h mark in game. Then at one point whenever he asked if I can do feature x, feature y, I said: let's work on first 5 minutes of game play. Ok ok. When he came up with another ideas I said let's work on first 30s of gameplay. Then whenever he get any more ideas I asked: "is this in first 5 minutes of gameplay?". It wasn't and the whole project went nowhere. I still have /r/inat I'm my RSS reader but mostly only for daily "I want to make MMORPG" posts.

corodra3• 7 years ago

I'm sorry, but that first paragraph was hilarious. Hates coding and realizes they don't want to be part of the pool that actually has to work 60+ hours a week... I want to be a team manager! I'd rather tell people to work 60 hours instead of being told to work 60 hours!

codesushi425• 7 years ago

I thought I was the only one who laughed at this inconvenient truth!

If you don't care for coding, and you have no artistic talent, maybe the games industry isn't the right place for you.

magic_beans2• 7 years ago

That's a bit unfair. The person in the article was obviously passionate about the industry. nearly every game dev studio has some combination of project managers, salespeople, marketers, hr -- aka non-artists and non-coders who are still incredible valuable.

cosmodisk9• 7 years ago

I had a good laugh about it,but the reality is that there are millions out there who couldn't be asked to move a finger but be more than happy to get a manager title and show others what to do.

Slartie• 7 years ago

I laughed at that point, too. Would have immediately showed the door to such an applicant. Reminded me a lot of little kids' job dreams: "I want to be a boss when I'm big..."

invalidOrTaken2• 7 years ago

I think that is an excellent career goal.

dsfyu404ed• 7 years ago

The problem with that strategy in the real world is that as a manager, if your team is working 60hr weeks they're probably creating 60hr of work for you. Sure you can ignore it but then you'll be the bottleneck and 60hr workweeks will become 30hr of work and 30hr of shitposting on HN. It's rarely sustainable to work less than everyone who's work makes you work. If you want to be a slave driver you need to keep up with the slaves.

digibo• 7 years ago

The difference between having a coding team manager that expects everyone should work 60+ hours and a non-coder who is against it, can be huge. I prefer the latter.

corodra3• 7 years ago

I always preferred to have a boss/manager that has some knowledge of what I do. Maybe not the best. But if I explain an issue or problem, they're not lost. Thus, when I say "this is going to take a while" they don't say "you need to do it faster". They let me do the work and on the backend try to find an extra hand, information or anything that might help me. Because they KNOW what I'm going through.

I've never met or heard of a manager whose only skill is managing and was actually helpful in the work process. Plus, the useless managers are typically the ones who think the peons should work at 60 hours, because they were never the peon.

Hey! I get to say this. I am triggered when I hear people only want to be managers because I know they're incredibly useless meat bags.

gwbas1c• 7 years ago

Lycanic hopes that in the end, the experience with Drakore will turn out well for Zeal. “At the end of the day, this is not a loss for us. This is a win for us,” said Dinçer. “We know tons of people who want to work with us and not ask for money from us until the time the game starts making money.”
Lycanic was a team of two developers, Mert Dinçer and Tim Popov

IMO, Dincer and Popov hold rather significant liability for not doing their due diligence. They were involved in the situation on a day-to-day basis, and will profit the most from the scam.

cloakandswagger• 7 years ago

I did find that quote funny. No kidding it's a win for you, by not exercising due diligence you got 25 people to work on your game for free, and you got to walk away with their work and the rights to the game. Talk about a windfall!

fapjacks7• 7 years ago

Not only that but the PR from this story will bring a ton of sales and buzz. They won the lottery.

cosmodisk9• 7 years ago

There are a lot of people reading this that may,at some point, go into freelancing.I do have a mixed experience of freelancing and seeing these things from the business perspective. 2 simple rules: 1) Always,always ask for % upfront. Ideally,50%. If they start coming up with excuses,drop them.There are extremely persuasive people out there, don't get on their hook. 2) Set milestones. Daily,weekly, or if a project is huge, maybe biweekly. If they start their crap about particular invoicing dates,money release, accountant being away or any other crap,even if it sounds convincing- drop them or put the project on halt,by limiting or restricting access, or some other ways. I'm senior enough in business to know plenty of weasel ways business people pull on freelancers, don't get fooled.

How over 25 People Got Scammed into Working at a Nonexistent Game Company

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