Main Street

Return of the Job-Search Fraudsters

Remember this story? Frightened people who’ve lost their jobs pay thousands of dollars to job search firms making big promises and delivering nothing.

The Arthur Group, a company that the New York Times featured as they investigated this phenomenon has now been charged with fraud in Minnesota. Former employees of the company had told the Times that “the company found jobs for about one person a month, but often none, though dozens of people signed up every month for services, usually paying several thousand dollars.”

The Arthur Group has closed since it was singled out by the Times, but that hasn’t stopped Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson from filing suit:

The lawsuit accused the Arthur Group of fraud and deceptive trade practices. It said clients were victimized by a “bait-and-switch,” in which job seekers were lured by the promise that they would gain access to numerous job openings and a “hidden job market,” but only if they paid as much as $4,500 for the company to improve their résumés and upgrade their interviewing skills.

“Consumers who paid for the Arthur Group’s services did not receive the interviews, or jobs, that they were promised,” the lawsuit said.

But as I had previously noted, it’s difficult to truly shut these guys down; too often the same names seem to repeat as the same guys keep coming back for more under different names. That’s true in this case: The president of the Arthur Group had previously worked for a job search company that was—wait for it—charged with consumer fraud. The company was shut down and ordered to pay restitution, its owner was barred from future work in the field…and one of its employees went on to go into the same business and be charged with the same thing.

It’s really like economic predator whack-a-mole out there.

Tags: predatory economy