This is important because a lot of parents have been scammed and the scam is ongoing across multiple countries.
Earlier this year I signed my kids up to Da Vinci Innovation Labs ( 達文西科技學習中心) at the Splendor in Taichung. STEM classes, robots, that kind of stuff. Supposedly a German company (I did check, seemed kosher) and you assume the dept store is not going to let some deadbeat rent half a floor.
Well a month after paying in advance for classes there is a sign at the door saying the business is shut. I have done a lot of detective work and these buggers have done exactly the same thing before in Singapore, last year: https://www.facebook.com/fung.s.wong.7/posts/10206493696338434
I am out 30 or 40k. Whatever. I’m not going to starve. But my kids are really disappointed as they were part through the course (which was actually really good) and didn’t get to finish their projects, same as 100 or so other parents some of whom paid a year in advance. There were so many alarm bells going off that these guys only take cash, that so much has to be paid up front, but my one kid has ADHD and anything that can get him to concentrate for 90 minutes is gold. I guess that’s why I’m so pissed off, preying on kids is just low life scumbag stuff.
They probably walked away with a million NT and a couple of old EV3 systems, not a great scam really considering they have bounced a check and cooked the company books which will mean jail time if they come back.
There is lots of other intrigue due to the last few weeks of fa piaos being issued from a separate newly formed company registered to a Taiwanese woman, and a new company with an identical website and business plan just popped up in Korea: wondercode.kr
If anyone does know these guys please tell them from me that they’re a pair of arseholes.
Anyone else who sees anything related to these business come up, be warned and steer clear.
Looked up the owner on linkedin just out of curiosity. Seeems he’s been all over asia (hong kong, singapore, shanghai, taipei) even speaks tagalog. .Not saying he’s set up business in those places but damn… sorry to hear about your experience.
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Damn that sucks for you son. I know what it’s like as a kid with ADHD. If he is interested in something, he excels. Everything else he might get obsessed for a short time and look for something else.
Hope you find something else like it.
I am an anonymous current/former employee of this company. For my own safety I need to remain anonymous and be careful how I phrase things as the owner has ‘allegedly’ often threatened criminal accusations against any employees that speak badly about him. Your suspicions are, in my personal opinion, fairly legitimate. As far as my understanding goes, the owner, who I can not name but will hereby refer to as “the owner” or “he”, ‘allegedly’ sold the assets of the Asians company’s and personally pocketed the money before debt collectors could seize the assets. He ‘allegedly’ tells investors, what I would in my personal opinion call lies, in order to get large investments which he then ‘allegedly’ funnels out into his own pocket through his extremely high expense accounts. How does the company even survive you may ask? Because he doesn’t just ‘allegedly’ scam the parents and students, he ‘allegedly’ scams the employees too. He will ‘allegedly’ bring employees, enticing them with a high wage/salary. He then ‘allegedly’ has them pay for the company’s expenses out of their own pockets. He ‘allegedly’ always pays the first couple expense reports immediately so new employees get the feeling “this is a legitimate company.” But then soon after, once employees get comfortable, the expenses ‘allegedly’ stop getting paid. You ‘allegedly’ get excuses like “oh there was an error in our system” or “we are changing accounting companies so there will be delays.” If you don’t keep spending your money on company expenses ‘allegedly’ he will fire you and you’ll never see your money again. But if you threaten to quit you’ll also just never see all the money you’re owed. I know of employees that are ‘allegedly’ owed tens of thousands of US dollars. Employees who have quit he then ‘allegedly’ harasses and accuses of stealing from the company. If they ever try to speak out against him, he ‘allegedly’ threatens to sue them for defamation. He has ‘allegedly’ been known to try and destroy peoples personal lives in retaliation for employees quitting. He ‘allegedly’ has many employees essentially held captive now because they are in too deep and their unpaid expenses are simply too high to abandon. The ‘scam’ in Asia that you mentioned actually started a lot earlier than you think. The owner ‘allegedly’ ran way with the money way earlier. The business was ‘allegedly’ kept alive a lot longer than it should have been because dedicated management level employees paid the salaries of the instructors out of their own pockets! The employees ‘allegedly’ felt so strongly about teaching the students that they paid for the materials themselves, but also because the owner ‘allegedly’ continually lied to the employees saying “dont worry we have several million dollars in funding coming in next month, you will all be paid back.” In my memory, he ‘allegedly’ would also often have new and inexperienced employees sign the contracts with the malls, vendors, etc and open bank accounts for the company in their own name instead of his. In my personal theory this is so that any investigations of fraud always lead to his completely unaware employees not himself. His name simply isn’t on anything so he will likely avoid any repercussions for his actions for a while.