Safe Link Joe Twombly Employment scam job giving out free govt phones, never pays Columbus Ohio

Joe Twombly is a person claiming to be a representative for SafeLink, a service that gives free cell phones to people with government assistance (medicaid, etc). Summer 2015, I responded to an ad he posted offering a job going to door to door getting people to sign up for these cell phones. The position was described as an independent contractor deal where I was to receive $10 for each verified sign-up. He said we'd walk around for a few weeks together so I could get the hang of using the tablet he gave me, and that I was free to sign people up at any time on my own as well.

First day of work, I meet 2 other people he's hired. He walks around with the one guy, I walk around with the girl. We each get quite a few people to sign up and their verifications go through quickly. We were also allowed to sign up ourselves if we had the right assistance proofs, and since we both did, we both signed up. I got my phone a few days later from SafeLink, so I figured all of this seemed pretty legit. We continued to walk around over the next couple days, and signed up quite a lot of people.

At the end of the week, I asked when we were getting paid. I was told 2 weeks after the first day that I'd created my account, so that meant 7 days from then. I was also told we'd be paid with reloadable debit cards--- that might seem weird but actually every industrial temp agency I've worked for does this, so I figured it was fine. Payday came and I was told some dumb, weird excuse saying that corporate hadn't sent him the cards yet, this was his first time coordinating a crew in this city, etc. He gave me 30$ in cash. I called "corporate", or at least, the number listed on the site, and a very rude woman told me that any issues with payment had to be taken up with the coordinator of our group. I told her that didn't make any sense and she hung up on me.

Already I was pissed about not being paid when I should've been, but I had loads of verified accounts and more coming through every day, I had nothing better to do and the job was easy (also, I was incredibly broke.) Signed up more people throughout the week. At this point, for the rate of $10 per sign up, he owed me at least $300. Friday came and again I was told some bullshit about the cards, so I said I wouldn't get out of his car or return the tablet until I was paid. He again offered me cash and whined about how this was his new business getting started up and he had costs and bills too, I said I didn't care because I was told I'd be paid for my work and expected to be. He gave me "all the cash he had"--- a little over $100, but not nearly all of what I was SUPPOSED to be paid.

The next day, he calls me early in the morning and asks if I'm coming to work. I said I'd work on my own when I felt like it, he gave me some sleazy salesperson pep talk, and I told him I'd be more enthusiastic once I got my actual check-- IF  I got it. Again, called the "corporate" number, tried to find any real phone number that actually went to  whatever agency deals with SafeLink/government phones, couldn't find a d**n thing.
He eventually went on to pay me another $80 or so in cash, but none of this added up to the amount I was actually supposed to get.

I'm not sure what the hell kind of scam this is, because it didn't seem like he was actually making any money either. The phones were actually real--- they did come with the free minutes, etc just like advertised. At first I thought "he's just stealing my sign-ups and claiming them as his own", but later I thought otherwise. I was never charged anything ,and we didn't take any information from people that could be used to steal from them (aside from their first names). In any case it was all very shady and I think he was somehow doing government-related fraud but just wasn't very good at it. Everyone I knew personally that signed up for a phone received their phone and some continue to use them even now with no problems. However all of this was shady as hell, a huge waste of my time and effort, and I never got paid the full amount I was owed. WATCH OUT FOR THIS GUY.