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Driving an ice cream truck might seem like a fun job for the summer.  At least it is work, right?   Well it is work, but you may lose money on this "job."

A recent applicant of an ice cream truck service reported an alarming pay structure.    The company is located on the far north side of Kenosha, on Sheridan Road.   The recent applicant was told that the
drivers are required to pay for all gasoline and will receive 10% of ice cream sales as commission.    So with gas at over $4.00 per gallon, and being on the road for 8 hours a day- how much money will working cost you?  I'm guessing these trucks don't get 15 mpg, but let's be generous.  So on average, an ice cream driver might drive 10 miles in an hour or 80 miles in a shift.  That's about 5 gallons of gas per day.  So now you are out $20 in gas.  Do you think the driver sells $500 a day in ice cream?  If they do, the driver will gross $50 in commission, minus the $20 they are out in gas.  So they have made a whopping $30 for a day's work!  That's if you sell enough ice cream to make money.

Equally alarming as a consumer, the applicant was told he would not need a background check.  Although his craigslist ads state a background check is required, it seems as though driver's salaries are not the only thing this company is scrimping on.   


 

 
If you are like a lot of Wisconsin residents, at one time or another you have applied for a job at CNH (Case) or one of the other major employers in the area.  There is a new scam targeting job searchers.  Emails are going out advising people that they have been identified as an applicant who may have been discriminated against by {insert major employer}.  The email will request that you click on a link to fill out the survey.  Below is the text included in one of these emails.  I have seen this exact same email with Fiat and CNH. 

A few things that should raise a red flag.  "This is not a scam" is in the actual text of the email.  Secondly, it invites you to call the office, however the number they list is the fax number.  There is no direct line to individual EEOC offices, they are all routed under one 800 number.   I called the EEOC today and held for the requisite 60 minutes (yes 60 minutes) and was informed that this was indeed a phishing email.



Dear CNH job applicant:

The
U.S. Equal Employment  Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), an agency of the United
States Government, is  currently investigating whether FIAT INTERNATIONAL
or one of its subsidiaries  has discriminated against job applicants and
employees because of their age, in  violation of The Age Discrimination in
Employment Act of 1967, as amended  (ADEA).

The EEOC has identified you
as a person who applied for  employment with CNH.  In order to assist the
EEOC in determining whether you  are someone whose rights may have been
violated, we are requesting that you  complete and submit this electronic survey
as soon as possible.  This is an  official inquiry, not a scam, and it
can be confirmed by calling the office  listed below or noting that we have a
.gov e-mail account.  The survey we ask  you to complete is short and
easy to execute.  Please click on the following  link to begin your secure
and password protected survey:   

Click here
for the survey


The
questionnaire  and your answers are confidential.  Please note that it
is a violation of  federal law for any current or former employer to retaliate
against you because  you have participated in a federal EEOC
investigation.  For additional  information concerning the EEOC,
please visit www.eeoc.gov.   

Thank  you for your
cooperation.  

United States Equal Employment Opportunity
  Commission
Philadelphia District Office
801 Market Street,
  Suite 1300 
Philadelphia , PA 19107
Phone: (215)
440-2606
TTY: (800)  669-6820 


 
File this one under "if it too good to be true, it probably is."  It sounds wonderful, the nicest boss ever,  great pay, the opportunity to work from home- or have them open a call center near you, travel opportunities, a total dream job.   Kelli Moore will tell you all about her companies- Moore Exposure, Moore Transition, Moore Fun and about all the wonderful things they are doing- including creating a million dollar infomercial, giving away huge prizes and traveling all over the country. 

Here's the victim's story, with names changed to protect them:

I replied to an ad on Craigslist and was called by Kelli Moore on a Friday.  She was so sweet and we hit if off right away, spending nearly 8 hours on and off the phone that day.  We discussed the problems she had with employees in the past and she offered me a management position starting at $40K a year with the potential of growing into a VP position that paid $140K in a few months.   I started immediately and she provided me with a corporate email and phone number that was forwarded to my cell phone.  

That Saturday, I got a call from her web designer.  She claimed she hadn't been paid in 2 months and couldn't get in touch with neither Kelly nor Janeene, her admin.  Since Kelli had mentioned her in her list of employees who she felt were padding the time sheets, I didn't get involved but passed the into on to Kelli.   She became unglued, furious that "Susie" (not her real name) and said she had already talked to her about this but would handle it on Monday because she didn't work on weekends.  That Monday, Kelli sent me an email explaining that she had talked to "Susie" and that it wasn't lack of payment but a missing check that had been mailed to the wrong address. She also mentioned several times that Susie had been warned not to bother me again.  I didn't quite understand this because my position was supposed to handle the employees, why didn't she want me involved. Then she dropped the next bomb.  Janeene wasn't a real person.  It was an alter-ego she had created to make her look more professional and to have someone to act as a gatekeeper for her. (So if Janeene said Kelli was unavailable, that was Kelli pretending to be Janeene and giving you the run-around)

I called "Susie" and acted like I was just following up.  She unloaded on me, telling me that not only had her first check "mysteriously" disappeared in the mail several times, first it was the wrong street number, then it was the wrong zip code etc. But also her second check, which should have been direct deposited never showed either.  She said she understood that Kelli had just had reconstructive surgery on Friday, or at least that was what Janeene had said.  This started me really thinking- because I knew this was a lie heaped on a lie.  Kelli did not have reconstructive surgery on Friday because she was on the phone with me all day. And Janeene is Kelli.  So we started comparing stories that weren't matching up.   She was so livid, she asked if I had Kelli's mailing address because she was sending a certified letter.  I didn't have a mailing address so I looked it up.  Out of curiosity, I looked the address up on Google Maps.  Kelli had mentioned that she lived on a gated estate- the address was for a TRAILER!    This wasn't the address Susie had, so we looked up her address.   This was for a Victorian in a commercial/residential area in Georgia and there was a realtor sign out front.  When I googled the address, I found a real estate listing.   So I called the realtor to find out if this was a residential or commercial property.

When I explained I was seeking information on a company that might have an office in the building, he sighed and asked what company~ like he already knew.  When I told him, he laughed and said "so she is alive."  He explained that she had been a good tenant for a couple of months and then disappeared and he had to have the Marshall come in to evict her.  So then I had an employee who said she wasn't getting paid and she had been evicted from the place she was claiming to do business in.

I do not know if she is running a scam, supposedly her company does travel and tours for colleges and whatnot, but I couldn't find any colleges that listed her as a tour.  She also claims that they give away a new house (yes HOUSE) and a new car every year as a raffle, but no one seems to have any information on this.  The web designer asked her for photos of the previous winners and she "lost" them. I am not sure if she is really ripping people off or just a really bad business person, but what I do know is I didn't want to be involved with someone who doesn't pay bills and I surely wasn't going to recruit people to perform jobs they probably wouldn't get paid for.


I did a little research into the company.  The do have a website www.omw2moorexposure.com and there few mentions of this company other than on sites like Manta.  We did find a job listing from her   http://www.sheltonstate.edu/sites/www/Uploads/Job%20Postings/2013/Moore%20Exposure_3.1.13.pdf   She is also affiliated with something called ELMS college tours but most of the links found on google are dead links.  A search on whois shows a different address than the business address and like the complaint states, one is a trailer and one is a commercial real estate location. There were no BBB complaints or any other mention of her or these companies.


There were numerous red flags, such as the immediate job offer and overly generous salary. Plus of course the promise of a six figure income.   The fact that she kept talking about employees who "ripped her off" and found the need to hide behind a faux admin sounds like she was setting the scene for more excuses and avoidance.  I am not sure what her game might have been, but I am glad the applicant cut and ran before she wasted time and effort and possibly got herself caught up in a legal mess.