Con Artists

These con artists go out of their way to make your life miserable by repeatedly lying to you regarding progress on your project. You see, they outsource all your work. Their business model is a small business dealing solely with outsourced contractors -- usually the Philippines or India. Really, there are only a handful of people that actually run the business, everyone else is hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. Are they competent contractors? Do they know how to edit and assess Ph.D. level work? Of course not! But you won't know that until you've remitted payment. They were tricky about accepting payments anyway, since they dealt solely in cash and cashier's check. You see, credit card purchases had the legal backing of the credit card company and that would be WAY too many issues.

I don't know anything about interaction with the clients, as I never did any of that interaction. The work was definitely outsourced, often on a super-tight time scale (and as I mentioned in the link above, they definitely BS'ed clients about the status of their project, but in the end, it seemed like deadlines were met, and this was annoying to me as a worker, but it didn't seem abnormal as compared to my mechanic who says "oh yeah I'm looking at it today" or your tenant who says that the check is in the mail), but I never heard anything about the Philippines or India. I was in the US. Everyone I ever dealt with at the company was intelligent and had an understanding of the appropriate mathematics to analyze the data at a level appropriate for the projects at hand, typically PhD theses in the humanities.

I can't speak to the payment processing or the business side of things, but I was always treated well (other than getting a fair amount of work that required quick turn around) and I was always paid promptly.

I had no interaction with Barron (I preceded him), and I had limited interaction with SoB. Most -- if not all -- of my business was handled through a project manager at the company who worked his ass off doing the same work I was doing, and we gchatted/aim'd about the projects frequently.

While outsourcing data analysis for a PhD thesis seemed odd to me, I was assured that this was relatively commonplace in the humanities. I have no idea if that is true. But nothing about the company seemed like a scam to me. 

However, I only worked there for 2 months, perhaps on a dozen or so projects. I was a broke grad student trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, whether to finish grad school, etc.

I'm happy to answer some questions here if people have them. I'm pretty surprised to hear about all of this, especially SoB's shady past. It never even occurred to me to check. How naive...

What the internet is saying...

Want to hear what the internet community is saying about the CEO and CFO? Check out this forum where they talk about Clark and Barron:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30/business-finance-investing/paid-intern-wanted-prestigious-consulting-firm-100106/

A cross-post from Pete Chabot (DEAR LORD!).

THEY ARE STILL AT IT

Hello out there! It's been a while since I've been able to update this blog. I've received a lot of information on how Minimax/MCG/Precision Consulting is STILL scamming people. First, if you've been a victim of this fraud company and you mailed in your money, please contact:

Stephen E. Souza

U. S. Postal Inspector

Postal Inspection Service

P.O. Box 6866

24 Corliss Street

Providence, RI 02940-6866

401.276.3960 (office)

651.994.3259 (fax)

sesouza@uspis.gov

Also: The company claims it was listed in the INC 500 list for 2010.  It was not.   A  company in a different sector with Precision in its name was, but not this bunch.

The address given in New York is for a place that rents you a mailbox, not an office.  I have not been able to verify the LA address they give.  The Delaware address is Dawn Chabot’s father.

I'm not surprised these thieving sociopaths are still going strong. Clark Guo and Barron Gati...jesus, you should be ashamed. I know the Buenos Aires address is for Martin Barugel b/c he is from Argentina and always conference calls in. Talk about LOSERS. Please, if you're searching for dissertation assistance or analysis, use a reputable company not this sham. 

I also heard through the grapevine that they are trying to move south to Florida. Opening a bunch of P.O. boxes is not a business make. Please contact me at connedbyminimaxconsulting@gmail.com with any further information that I can post up on the blog!

PRECISION CONSULTING, LLC

Minimax Consulting has rebranded itself using its usual staff w/ a few new people. They got rid of the Chabots on the website, but we all know they're behind it. Oh, did I mention they're now based out of New York, NY. Not that Pete Chabot doesn't have a verifiable criminal record there for a SEC violation in the early 2000s. You can see they're carbon copied website here: http://www.precisionconsultingcompany.com/index.html

Gee, doesn't that look familiar? So I'll be doing my rounds getting the word out. I didn't think these con artists would go down so easily.

Minimax Is Closing its Doors!

All I can say is that it's been a long time coming -- even though they'd like to cover up their misdeeds with flowery prose and empty appreciation (No one is buying that shit!) Hopefully this isn't the beginning of another rip-off company, like a new business plan for trying to sell organs on the black market, or something of that nature. Instead, I hope these con-artists learned their lesson that suckering students out of thousands of dollars will destroy your virtual reputation -- no simple domain change can hide the fraudulent activities you engage in during this information era. This is especially true since many companies do business virtually. Nonetheless, I will still be watching out for any new ventures headed by the infamous Chabots. I can only hope those victimized by these scammers received some of their money back or, at least, are more savvy when enlisting help. Either way, Happy Holidays! May this serve as a bonus under your Christmas tree!

"Whatever you do, DO NOT work with or for this company. I've worked for them personally and this is what they do:

Hire Filipinos with barely any certification or degrees. They pay them next to nothing after promising them thousands of dollars a month. They charge students upwards of a $1000 for a simple chapter edit or write-up. About a tenth of that will be what they pay their writers.

They are the biggest fraud company and no matter what name they change to, the loyal legion of students they've f'ed over will follow them. They lost accreditation from the Better Business Bureau because of the inordinate amount of complaints.

They have about 5 people who work in the office. Peter Chabot is a complete scam artist convicted felon arrested for SECs fraud. Very similar to his father who was convicted of real estate fraud in Rhode Island over millions of dollars. Charlotte Chabot is the front person. Almost everyone on their website no longer works for them and they just amp up their website to look professional when really it's a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Charlotte Chabot's father is the company lawyer who guides them through all the corporate loopholes that keeps them in business. I'm praying that they make a mistake one of these days and I see them on nightline.

Barron Gati, Clark Guo, Lenny Marandino, Pattilou Normand and Martin Barugel and all of them are out to screw you over. They'll be exceptionally nice on the phone, but once you hang up and they get you to wire over the money...just kiss it all goodbye. And don't expect to be paid anything near what they say they'll pay you if you're an employee. They rip everyone off, including the ones they hire.

I can't explain enough how absolutely horrid this company is. They are a small business posing as a large firm. Do not give them time, money or a second thought. I'm very surprised that Stephenie R. Thomas actually works for them. But hey, she's a corporate lawyer so what can you expect.

Do NOT touch this company with a ten foot pole." - Essay Scam Reviewer IceNYri



EssayScam.org

Any experience with MinimaxConsulting.com?

"I suggest vehemently that you DO NOT USE MCG, previously Minimax Consulting. If the idiomatic expression, "Where there's smoke, there's usually fire" does not appeal to your good senses when you check their closing BBB rating in Providence, R. I., or run multiple search engines on this/these company(ies), then let me recount part of my own, exasperating (and criminal) experiences with them:

(1) MCG violated all contractual agreements, including each and every promised deadline, and explicit research objectives to be analysed;

(2) After months of excuses and outright lies, and passing me around from one "Client Specialist" to another (probably because their employee turnover rate is astronomical), and after threatening them with legal action/demanding a full refund, MCG sent me a document I could not in any way use, unless of course, I didn't give a rat's a** about my own reputation. There was absolutely no reproducibility of statistical analyses based on the depauperate amount of information provided, and I have no doubt, this was strategic.

(3) They unequivocally refused to supply any of the original statistical functions or output;

(4) Explanatory syntheses that accompanied were downright pitiful, and obviously authored by a non-English speaking illiterate. Hell, my 13-year old is more lucid!

(5) Shortly after receipt of the proctologically derived results and conclusions, I posted an anonymous, throttling complaint about their company and its "services"; and within moments, lo' and behold, received an open threat from the company via email (which I have kept).

(6) Just for giggles, let me mention also that they have (a) an unwavering, No-Refund Policy, (b) Caller ID on all their contact numbers, and (c) conveniently changed the company name under a looming cloud of suspicion and during a barrage of consumer complaints being investigated by multiple agencies, e.g., the BBB of RI, the RI AG's Office, the FTC, the American Gaming Association, USPS.gov, and the list goes on . . .

I cannot describe for you what I have truly experienced in terms of sleepless nights, loss of valuable time and money, betrayal, fallout with my advisor, graduation delay, and other casualties because I hired these totally incompetent and unscrupulous bastards to validate my research findings.

Nor can I change my own decision to hire MCG or erase what they have done to me. But I will do my BEST to try and make sure that potential students, writers, and other consumers are made aware of their grotesquely disdainful treatment of former writers and clients, alike. In this way, maybe others will take heart to what they have read, and not provide MCG with the opportunity to defraud them." - Essay Scam Reviewer MCGFraudMinimaxScam

EssayScams.org