EMPLOYERS BEWARE! 

Serial Extortionist Jay Ravede is at it again! 

No one is certain how long his extortion habits have been going on, but at least two companies have already fallen victim!  Don't let your company be next!  

Jay Ravede presents himself as a very savvy salesman with over 20 years of experience including owning and managing his own insurance company (Ravede Insurance Agency).  But rather than being an asset to our sales team, Jay Ravede instead preyed on our small company.  He is an excellent manipulator and can sell you on his skills and charm in under 5 minutes.  But if you hire him, you will soon wish you hadn't!

Our company hired Jay after his departure from Activ Doctors Online; whom he spoke very poorly of.  He told us he left the company because they didn't pay him commissions owed, and that after months of working without a paycheck he simply couldn't take it anymore.  He stated he thought the owners were laundering money through the company and that he was planning to alert the IRS.  Because of his rant about the company, we refrained from calling them... BIG MISTAKE!  Jay also told us that he had turned down jobs at two larger companies, because he thought we offered a better opportunity.  This should have been a red flag to us, but instead we thought we were just lucky!  WRONG. 

Within 2 weeks after working with our company there were big problems with Jay Ravede.  He was very passive-aggressive in the office, and at many times was very disrespectful, saying things like "Duh" to his superiors.  He also made several out-of-line sexual comments, creating a hostile work environment for his employers.  This on top of his barrage of poor jokes, many revolving around agism, left us very uncomfortable in the work place.  But the real problems began when we sat down to have a review of his sales - or lack thereof. 

Jay prides himself on being a phenomenal sales man, and will tell you about how no one has ever beat him in a competitive sales environment.  Yet despite his inflated ego, in the past 30 days Jay didn't sell a single item!   At the time he was fired his closing record was 10X worse than our other employees.  And when we laid out the statistics for him showing his numbers compared to our other employee, he erupted.  Immediately he began telling us we were liars, that we were making up the numbers, that we were full of it, that there was no way our data was correct.  He kept defending himself, despite the fact we were trying to have an honest discussion about what could be done to improve his efforts, rather than coming down on him.  We even told him we were not considering firing him before the meeting, but after the disrespect he showed us and the aggression we saw from him, we decided firing Jay Ravede was our only option. 

The next morning when he came in to work, we told Jay Ravede he was being let go and thanked him for all he had done for us.  We kept things incredibly professional, but rather than responding in anger and disagreement before leaving as most employees would, Jay began to issue threats to us.  He told us we created a hostile work environment, and that if we didn't pay him severance and overtime then he would sue us, bankrupt our company, and spread libel about our company around the web.  A few hours later an email came from Mr. Ravede demanding $20,000 in severance despite working for just under 7 weeks where he made just over $4,000.  He gave us 5 days to get him the money, or he would get lawyers and sue us for wasting his time and costing him 6 months on his search for employment. 

After hearing his absurd demands, I called Activ Doctors online and spoke to their CEO.  I told her the story of what happened with Jay Ravede and she confirmed to me that he did the very same thing to her company.  She said she had to get attorneys involved to put an end to Jay's extortion and blackmail efforts, as well as his ongoing threats.  But one thing was for certain - this was a repetead behavior from Jay Ravede.  And as we soon found out, he had planned this out weeks prior!

We began digging through the records on our computer and found a file that contained all the logins and passwords for any account used by Jay Ravede during busines hours.  Much to our surprise we found emails from Jay Ravede being sent from our computers during business hours, to other employers.  We found fraudulent copies of his new resume, stating he had worked for our company since 2013, when he was hired in April 2014.  He also embelished what he had done for our company, accrediting himself with accomplished tasks he had never done.  Now we began to wonder how much of his original resume was fabricated.  We found he was scheduling phone calls, interviews, and email exchanges with other companies for his own outside business interests, while on the clock for us.  This fraudster who accused us of wasting 6 months of his search for employment (by firing him from a temporary position after 7 weeks) was leading us on the whole time!  He was searching for other jobs while collecting his paycheck from us and neglecting his duties as our employee.  All the while he took us for a fool. 

If you interview Jay Ravede, DO YOUR HOMEWORK!  He looks for smaller companies, promises you the world, then gets hired and doesn't perform!  He turns around and creates a hostile work environment, blames the employer, and gets aggressive in his speech.  Then when he's made sure he gave you enough of a show for you to fire him, he plays the victim and threatens to sue your business unless you pay him an exhuberant sum of money!  Beware of this fraudster and his ongoing extortion/blackmail scheme.  I'm glad we found the evidence against him we did.  After his last threat to our company I decided NO MORE JAY RAVEDE.  I'm not going to be bullied or blackmailed or extorted for money.  Instead I'm going to warn EVERYONE of your fraudulent activities in hopes you won't have the opportunity to put anyone else through the nightmare of having hired you!