Would the Real Justin Tredo Please Step Forward: A Scam Out of Texas

How would you feel if you had built a good reputation in your industry, and someone came along and took your name, and subsequently linked your name to a sham company?

Let me tell you a story about how low people will stoop to make a buck (even lower than Tai Lopez).

I received an email from an acquaintance in California who is looking for a new job. In his search, he applied for several positions on Indeed.com. One of these was a property management position.

He was answered by a gentleman named Justin Tredo of Axelon Talent Consulting. In fact, he received email after email from "Justin." This made my friend a little suspicious, so I decided to check it out myself. Here's one of Justin's emails:

And here's his bio:

However, and interestingly, this is Justin Tredo's Linkedin profile:

So who is the real Justin Tredo, and which is the real Axelon?

There is an Axelon Services Corporation at 44 Wall Street in New York City. They have their own website, www.axelon.com.  And, they also employ the Justin Tredo whose Linkedin profile is above.

So what gives with the other Justin Tredo at Axelon?

There is no other Justin Tredo, and that Axelon is a fake. It is a sham recruiting company out of Dallas.

Your question probably is, what's the hook - what's the point in taking this guy's identity and setting up a sham recruiting firm?

That's the real point of this blog. I want you to see just how insidious this scam is, and understand how close this person came to handing over money to the phonies operating this sham company.

First, take a look at the fake Justin Tredo's email above. Do you see the website address? It's www.astcsginc.com. If you click it now, you will see that it's non-operational. (It was operational a few weeks ago, until I sent one of my very direct emails to the fake Justin Tredo.)
However, the links in the emails from Fake Justin still work. Here's a screenshot of one of the pages from those links:

Notice that the current openings on the right side of the screen don't have locations. Legitimate position listings should always include locations in parentheses next to the title of the position, so the user's time is not wasted clicking on a position in the wrong city or state.

Another point - why doesn't the domain name have some variation of the word Axelon in it? That was another big clue that this was a scam. No real firm would have a domain name completely unrelated to its business name. That would be absurd and totally contrary to setting up a website for a business.

The next clue is the phone number. Call it: 855-982-1881. It's a hoot. A recorded female voice answers and gives a thirty second speech about how ethical the company is. However, she never gives the name of the company. When she's done, she says that you can dial your party's extension or hit zero for the receptionist. There are no extensions, so you must hit zero. Then, you get hung up on.

Fake Justin's next email was a directive to take a pre-interview assessment test. This, in itself, is not unusual. Many companies/recruiters ask candidates to take tests to determine their knowledge level.

However, this is what's unusual. He also suggested a prep course for the assessment test:

This is bizarre. You don't want to recruit someone for a position who doesn't know their stuff and needs to take a prep course. It's counterintuitive to recruiting. You want the best, most knowledgeable candidate for the job.

When you click that link, you get this:

And so now, here's the point of this whole scam. The scam is to get you to buy a $20 review guide for a position that doesn't exist, sent to you by a recruiter who doesn't exist.

Who does exist? This guy, James Murphy, who owns astcsginc.com:

Could that be the same "Murphy" as in "Murphy's Review Professional Study Guides?"

The bottom line is, a recruiter should never, ever ask you to purchase a product in preparation for an interview. That has scam written all over it. Don't fall for it.

On another note, I am currently consulting on three sexual harassment cases involving one teacher at a prestigious university in Brooklyn, NY. Among other things, this teacher asked the three female students if he could lick their a**holes. That's what $40,000 a year in tuition gets you these days.

I will keep you posted.