Here’s one from our unofficial Irony Department: We occasionally get e-mails from folks who have been contacted by a company called TCMI, which charges around $5,000 to help find folks find lucrative jobs through the help of a sort of super-secret-double-probation database. These folks usually Google TCMI and find this Press story, which describes TCMI’s hilarious modus operandi.
But what really got us from the latest e-mail was that this would-be victim sent us a link to TCMI’s December press release on “How to Avoid a Career Scam.”
Key points:
— “TCMI recommends that the jobseeker fully investigate the company prior to accepting any offer.” Really? Would that include investigating TCMI, which changes its name every five minutes and for some reason claims to have offices in Scotland and the Middle East, when they don’t?
— Does the company have an atmosphere “that is conducive to growth
and free complaints”? For serious, TCMI? Does that mean unresolved
complaints filed at BBBs across the country, as well as from state
attorneys general?
The interesting thing is, if you type
“TCMI” in Google, the word “scam” is the second suggested modifier. The
Press story is there, but it’s surrounded by the “How to Avoid a Career
Scam” release. Could it be that someone was trying to bury the Press story?
Hair Balls doesn’t think so, mostly because that would be
a really dumb way to do it. A smarter way would be for TCMI to change
its name to, say, XYZ. So then when a person they reach out to Googles
XYZ, the Press story wouldn’t even come up. And see, only a room full
of freakin’ dumbasses would try to mask the Press story with a
ridiculous press release. So in effect, we’d be calling the guys at
TCMI a bunch of freakin’ dumbasses. And, really, that’s the last
thing we’d say. So believe us: TCMI has nothing whatsoever to do with a
room full of dumbasses.
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2009.
