How over 25 People Got Scammed into Working at a Nonexistent Game Company
kotaku.com.au
kotaku.com.au
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.
The engineering retainer times out monthly and gets refreshed before the next month, or when it's exhausted, whichever comes first. Done properly you're not one of your client's creditors: The client should always be in a financial position w/r/t you where you're pre-paid, your compensation secured by the positive retainer balance and if you really get serious, by retaining a perfeted security interest in the work product.
So far, it hasn't been a good idea to start out that way, even from our perspective. The problem with "projects" is that there are usually requirements on both sides, and payment + delivery keep things urgent for both sides. I hate projects that go on forever because the client can't produce things they need to or respond in a definitive manner. Holding the deliverable back is a pretty impactful negative consequence (or: motivation).
We are exploring an "agency of record" start-up engagement where the retainer plus phases may be the way to go. But it's less of a project with deliverables than agency-of-record time and effort.
The only time I ever worked on a multi month project where I didn’t do that I didn’t end up getting paid.
"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)
"Can we just changes this?And this?And then bombards you with 20 back and forth of last minute changes that have never came up in previous 10 meetings you had" (Either can't make up their minds or simply no idea what they want or just delaying payments).
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.
OK so maybe the only other exception to this rule is when you have a real life serious executed contract and a purchase order with a serious company with hundreds of employees at minimum. Actually just kidding even then don't do it unless you know what you're doing. Those guys decide not to pay or pay months or years later a lot of the time too and will put you right out of business.
If someone complains about your policy tell them that you don't have a business manager, billing department, or collections operation, and by not having that you're passing all the savings on those functions on to the client, in exchange for a simple deposit or retainer.
Trust me on this. I'm old and have seen a lot of shit. Until you have a ton of experience freelancing or consulting or running an agency and don't need to ask questions like this just start off by getting a deposit or retainer up front every single time you do any work at all.
On the whole this is how the world operates. Work then pay.
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.)
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.
If you don't care for coding, and you have no artistic talent, maybe the games industry isn't the right place for you.
Reality hurts.
Reality does hurt.
Reality doesn't hurt too much for them.
- being lord of your shack in the woods and its surrounding area
- being in management
- having your house paid off
- being in high demand
All of those sound pretty great to me.
I like being a developer. But I think I'd rather own Papa John's. (Not a Papa Johns, all of Papa John's).
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.
It's a s* test that is a far better indicator of experience and competence than any flashy portfolio and ratings.
> 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.
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.
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.
Construction liens are designed expressly for situations like this and are fairly easy to get with proof of nonpayment (generally, a timely submitted invoice registered with your local trade union, inspector's office, or similar).
https://www.15min.lt/m/id/aktualu/nusikaltimaiirnelaimes/dar...
Won't be dragging my neighbour to the comments section to prove what I was told, however any basic google search shows more than enough articles how people get scammed by builder. BBC even has its own show- Rogue Traders,which exposes people that are much worse compared to what I mentioned in my previous articles.
Also a good way to get sued for negligence.
And while we're at it, your friend was looking at potential criminal charges, especially if the house had filled with carbon monoxide and killed its inhabitants.
But I suppose it makes a good story.
CO is dangerous, sure, but lots of fireplaces have had poor draws over the thousands of years that humans have been using fireplaces. It's more common to die from CO when the whole house is burning, but it isn't a sure thing even then. Lots of practices that used to be accepted are going away now that some buildings have CO detectors installed. I had to get the fire department involved to convince a tenant in my office building that their cleaning crew shouldn't use propane-powered floor buffers. The fire department guy was like "I wondered why we had a CO alarm in June..."
It's amusing to me that you're so sure my friend was lying about this amusing anecdote from his past. I've seen this guy get in an argument with an employer when he thought he had been overpaid.
It's one thing to build a chimney that accidentally traps fumes. It's another to do so deliberately. This sort of stunt in CA would be (and 30 years ago, still would have been) a criminal act.
So yeah, I'm pretty sure your friend is either outright lying or exaggerating the truth to ridiculous extremes.
It's more common to die from CO when the whole house is burning, but it isn't a sure thing even then.
I have no idea where you got this statistic from, but the primary cause of death from fires is smoke inhalation, not CO inhalation. CO inhalation deaths are greatest in the winters when people run their fireplaces with the chimney flues closed or faulty internal heaters.
This may come as a surprise, but I live in a rural county, and the house we're talking about is in an even more rural county. It's curious, that on HN we Americans are always reminded not to assume anything about other cultures (and rightly so), but we're eager in turn to assume all sorts of things about other states we've never seen. You've got some strong emotions about how remodeling should be done and paid for, but not everyone feels the same as you do. Certainly not everyone felt that way decades before you even thought about construction. California (or whatever other state you're referencing) is not a microcosm of the rest of the nation.
Anyway, you're wrong about that state too. Lots of remodeling gets done there, too, without the involvement of licensed general contractors.
Not legally, which was my point.
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.
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.
You could implement a voting mechanism for the milestone payment. Or leave it to the boss.