Ron Stern Commercial Consultants International Employment Fraud - this JERK offers executives bif salaries and the title of vice president - Never Pays Anyone Ft Lauderdale Florida

Ron Stern, the scam artist that stole millions of dollars from companies and individuals was arrested again by the FBI and is being held in Long Beach, CA awaiting a sentencing hearing in early Jan.

He and his associates, one of whom is also under arrest, operated a scam collection agency out of Orlando, Fl and through various "executive branches" operated by "vice presidents" he hired through small employment agencies to represent his company to businesses throughout the USA.

His website indicated that he had 1200 investigators on staff and worked with more than 500 lawyers around the world.

His approach was to "hire" a "vice president" through the employment agency, using the approach of a "salary of $10,000 per month, plus expenses, plus the lease car of your choice, plus commissions of up to 35% of the collection fees on commercial accounts or B2B collections.

The "vice president" was to contact businesses in his area and agree to "collect" the past due accounts (many medium sized businesses may have up to a million dollars outstanding in uncollected accounts at any given point in time) The "vice president" would instruct the account to fax their hot accounts (those under 120 days old with values in excess of $10,000 each) to the CCI office in Orlando.

The scam worked in two directions at once. The CCI associate in Florida would contact the debtor and threaten all kinds of legal action unless he paid up at once and sent the money due to CCI in Florida. CCI used the name of one of the largest collection firms in the state to support their threats. Any money sent to CCI simply wint into Ron Stern's pocket. At the same time he would contact the "vice president" and the company with the tale that they had located the assets of the debtor but need 10% to 20% of the outstanding debt to file a claim against the debtor before the located money was moved.

If the company fell for the scam, they were instructed to wire the funds to a general pickup point in Orlando, supposedly near the courts where Ron Stern had an executive or lawyer waiting to file the legal papers to grab the debtors money.

Ron Stern would then notify the company, once they received their deposit from the innocent company that they would overnight a certified check for the full amount of the outstanding debt but they demanded that the company, once they received the overnight letter to immediately wire the remainder of the fees back, less the deposit they had previously received.

The company, upon receiving the check for the full amount, would in almost all cases, wire the commission due the collection agency back immediately to Florida.

The "certified checks" were worthless copies but that usually was not determined for several days and by then, the scam was over as far as that company was concerned. Ron Stern depended on the "vice president" to send him a large number of accounts in order to remain "employed" and he often initiated his scam on several accounts at the same time, using the same worthless certified check for each one, chaning only the name and the dollar amount. The "vice president" was the guy in the hot seat with the companies and the authorities as he was the only CCI person known to anyone. I should point out that Ron Stern never paid his "vice presidents" anything at all and he threatened to have his "private investigators" contact them at their homes if any further was mentioned about his company. He fired them over the phone and most of the "vice presidents" were left facing the scorn of the companies they had dealt with and authorities they had to answer to.

I was duped for about 30 days by the whole scheme but I didn't allow any company to send more than a few hundred dollars to the firm and even then, I cautioned them to await the outcome before sending anything else. I was "fired" and "threatened" by Ron Stern as a result. I contact the Attorney General of Florida and was advised to seek privat counsel. I contacted the FBI in Miami, Florida and subsequently, Ron Stern was arrested attempting to leave the country at Los Angeles airport.

I reported to the two companies I had presented his firm to and gave them copies of the FBI letters to me and advised them to file a crime victim report with the FBI. The FBI also contacted both companies directly.

Before you send anyone money on the Internet, check with D&B to see if they are listed and actually exist. Search the Internet for any negative information on the firm. Contact the local BBB (in the case of Ron Stern, the local BBB had no negative reports on the company but the local court files had more than 130 cases filed against Ron Stern and his various companies so, figure that one out with the largest judgement against Ron Stern in favor of Management Recruiters International for $850,000.00) so even the big guys get taken in these con games!

After I discovered that: Ron Stern aka Bob Goodwin aka Whitman Credit Counseling aka Whitman Collection Services aka Whitman Financial Services aka Pamela Stern aka Ronald Stern aka Commercial Consultants International of Orlando, Florida, was listed over 100 times in the civil courts of Florida where judge after judge called him a major criminal, a felon, a crook of the worst kind and many other appropriate adjectives, his total "take" was listed at over $2,000,000 in one county alone!

I contacted the Florida Attorney General, and was advised by email to take up the matter with a "civil court" and although I responded with actual case files from the public records, nothing more was heard from that busy little man. I turned to the FBI with the same information. Two weeks later, I was contacted by a special agent in Miami, who informed me that Ron Stern had been arrested by the FBI in Long Beach, Calif.

I contacted the Special Agent in Long Beach and discusses what my experience had been with Ron Stern and Commercial Consultants Intl. I also informed her that my reseach revealed that as of two weeks ago, Ron Stern was still ripping people off in Denver, Co. They acknowledged that Ron Stern was out on bail awaiting trial. I suggested they re-arrest him for fraud and take away his cell phone and toll phone access.

That's the latest on this guy but I suspect he's only one of many pulling the same scam.