Stephen Smith Management, AKA Career Management Solutions ripoff dishonest fraudulent breach of contract failure to provide services Irvine California

I believe I may have been the victim of another of the cadre of job service rip-off merchants, such as Careers2000, Careers20/20, JobFinders International, Wellington Bourke, Global Career Management, et al.

Last year I met with a "Richard Bell" of Career Management Solutions (CMS). They were at 1 Park Plaza, 6th Floor, Irvine, CA 92614. The telephone number of 949-833-7115 is for a managed office facility, Business Center Irvine (BCI). The office space and company were ran under the name of Stephen Smith Management (SSM). The space was rented from October 2001 to January 2002, when the premises were vacated without leaving any business forwarding details. Vanessa Decker, the Customer Service Manager for BCI indicated they have a registered address for SSM, but because it appears to be a residential address she declined to disclose it.

CMS's modus operandi is - or was - exactly the same as the other rip-off career services, ie a pitch consisting of "we have inside contacts, we'll rewrite your resume, we'll give you your own web space, access to ExecuNet", etc., with zero followup, beyond a piss-poor resume rewrite.

Phone calls were never returned after I coughed up $1450. The company seems to have disappeared entirely, along with my money.

Interesting point 1: president of Wellington Bourke is Greg Smith. Any relation to Stephen Smith?

Interesting point 2: When opening a Word document sent to me by Stephen Smith that described the services of CMS (originally emailed to me from smithgogo@aol.com [Greg Smith????]), and then looking in File/Properties, I found the letter was originally written by Dianna Gonzales of JobFinders International in July 2001...a company now owned by Wellington Bourke with a certain Mr Smith at the helm

Right now I don't think I have enough evidence to launch a lawsuit. Perhaps your knowledge of the various players may help fill in the gaps, and publicise the company too, to see if anyone else got hit by CMS.

Terry
Los Angeles, California