Scam Update [8/16/12]: Developer of Technician Deployment wrote a blog post here …
The tech world was abuzz over the weekend after a tech posted on a LinkedIn group that Technician Deployment Services had him listed as a resource at their website. He never had a business relationship with them and the information that they held on him was inaccurate and fabricated. All tech profiles at the above site had varying amounts of inaccurate work orders listed and canned stats for each tech was flush at 85 percent.
[pullquote]The data that TDS utilizes is at least five months old.[/pullquote]
Technician Deployment Services (TDS) is a Spokeo-type website where technician data has obviously been harvested from various tech platforms (via public search interfaces with Geo-locate tools). The data that TDS utilizes is at least five months old and does not match the techs with their fields of expertise.
On one tech forum a technician exchanged some emails with TDS “Mark” requesting details about why TDS claims that he ran 60+ calls for them. Mark responded that he did not track which platform he ran the calls from but insisted it was from one of the reputable tech platforms.[ref] Tech Companies that have been in business for two or more years and have stability in the tech industry. [/ref] He also responded in an email to one of the techs that the tech had run a few Dell system calls for them – and the tech commented that he had never run Dell calls for two of the reputable tech platforms. Mark rebutted stating that he has limited info after the merger of the reputable tech platform databases with his own.
[pullquote]Recently, TechCaddie requested removal of his tech profile from TDS and sent me this TDS Voice mail response from Mark. [/pullquote]
Recently, TechCaddie requested removal of his tech profile from TDS and sent me this TDS Voice mail response from Mark (current phone# 832.303.9151); note the voice comparison with this TSWW YouTube video. Mark has a tendency to note reputable companies in his response to techs who query him. One lie is built upon another, this is how scam artists operate.
Mark (a.k.a. Charles Johnson, Charles A. Johnson, Adam Johnson, Chuck Johnson, Charles J. Adams), is a scam artist.[ref]Ripoff Report http://www.ripoffreport.com/directory/Charles-Johnson.aspx [/ref]He is currently running two companies that I am aware of:
1. Technician Deployment Services (TDS)
I could not find TDS legally registered in any of the states that Mark haunts but he has a virtual office in Manhattan at 45 Rockefeller Plaza. His YouTube video: We Have The World’s Most Advanced Portal is psychologically frightening.
2. Technology Services Worldwide (TSWW)
is delinquent…and they have a website filled with lies. They are not with listed with the BBB and NASA is not one of their clients. [website was taken offline]
Content/Web Theft/Intellectual Property Theft
[pullquote]Both sites are ripoffs of other sites on the web, with bits and pieces stolen from brands and patched together to make both sites appear genuine.[/pullquote]
Both sites are ripoffs of other sites on the web, with bits and pieces stolen from brands and patched together to make both sites appear genuine. Online criminals like Mark (a.k.a. Charles Johnson, Charles A. Johnson, Adam Johnson, Chuck Johnson, Charles J. Adams) are a dime a dozen, though he is a bit dumber than the rest. He is certainly not an expert at covering his digital content-theft tracks, but appears to be quite adept at disguising his geographical location.
TSWW is “revolutionizing[ref] http://wn.com/techniciandeployment [/ref]the industry” by stealing videos from Concert Technologies and from ServiceMax[ref] http://www.tswsupport.com/Meeting/WhyOurTechnologyWorks.html.[/ref]too. Check out this partial client list and compare it with the client list over at Vantage Technology Development.
My Fake Profile
[pullquote]Nothing is happening with Polly – her profile is still blank…[/pullquote]
I could not stand the suspense of being left out of Mark’s database, so I created Polly Wood on Tuesday (she has an 85% default performance rating). Nothing is happening with Polly – her profile is still blank, though she is currently listed in the site search at TDS. Two new techs were recently added this week, respectively: # 410362 and #410363.
Take Action! – A Lesson From The Infosec Community
Gregory Adams of Ligatt Security (web archive) was finally dismantled by the #infosec community for a long history of plagiarizing content without attribution or permission. Once claiming to be the Worlds #1 hacker and even copy/pasting a book about it!
It is the common opinion of industry experts that Evans and his company have little real knowledge beyond pedestrian hacking techniques found in plagiarized books and beginner hacking texts. LIGATT offers products that are simply bloated version of common tools such as ping and nmap.[ref]
Rothke, Ben. Lessons from LIGATT. July 11, 2011.
Date of Access:August 9, 2012 . Retrieved from: http://infosecisland.com/blogview/15064-Lessons-from-LIGATT.html[/ref]
The Infosec community had him banned from speaking at security conferences and was able to carry out a successful Twitter campaign under the #Ligatt hash tag to expose and contain him.
[pullquote]To eventually stop online criminals like Mark, it will take tremendous action and energy from the tech community. [/pullquote]
To eventually stop online criminals like Mark, it will take tremendous action and energy from the tech community. Merely complaining in forums will not achieve anything. Tech action should involve collecting a repository of information on his misdeeds, bombarding his social profiles with validated accusations, reporting falsified information (such as Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Cisco Select Certified Partner claims at his site), and contacting state officials (Attorney General).
Always make sure that the company you are handing your tech profile to is legitimate and well known in the tech realm.
5 Key Characteristics Of A Reputable Tech Company
[pullquote]Companies such as FieldNation, OnForce, and WorkMarket are well known entities in the tech realm.[/pullquote]
Companies such as FieldNation, OnForce, and WorkMarket are well known entities in the tech realm. They are ambitious, focused, inspiring and anyone who is a tech knows them by brand.
- They are searchable via the major search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo.[ref]Edit suggested by George Jenkins of I’ve Been Mugged[/ref]
- They have a physical address.
- Their business is registered with the Secretary of State and their status is active and in good standing.
- WHOIS for their company domain does not hide behind a privacy mask.
- They have a website Privacy Policy.
________________________________________________________________________________
He did the same thing to me. Paid me with two bounce checks.
Taking the checks to the worthless checks division.
Promise you, he will get caught.
Thanks for posting this – we have not forgotten this fraudulent tech scammer. He emailed me last year and I was able to grab his IP and at that time it appeared that he was in Texas. I am not sure if he is smart enough to use a proxy 🙂
I was very disappointed that the contractor that he hired (that coded his sites), stated that he would release the code (and did not do that.) With the code we could have figured out far more on the data timeline.
Even contacting the tech companies regarding the training videos that he ripped off (and claimed as his own) – brought very little response from the companies that were affected.
Sad to say, but he will probably get away with this criminal behavior for a very long time…
If someone were to go to RipoffReport and search Charles Johnson you will find a whole list of entries for him spanning back years. Anything there with that name related to the tech industry is him. You will also find some of his aliases and company names. One of the names he used as an alias for an employee scamming with him is mine, which is why I am not leaving my name in these posts. That boarders on identity theft and he is smart enough to do it. Smart in a bad little internet punk kind of way. He owns nothing, his mother has anything he owns in her name. He moves about generally within the southern states. His main state was Colorado. Business addresses in New York and whatnot are just mailing addresses, there is no office. It miffs me that even the IRS and FBI will not go after him, apparently he is not bad enough for them to use resources on. I did call them each once. That makes sense there are much worse scammers that need to be caught and the authorities only have so much time in the day, but still he needs to go down somehow!
He was not in Texas. He has lived in Denver, CO for the last 10-12 years. .
Zara,
I am ready when you are = please stay in touch 🙂
Thanks,
Bev
I believe Charles aka Mark is also stealing identities. His alias names seem to be names of past employees who have fought back against him for back pay. He still owes me $2500. for running calls and has popped up as 4 business names since then. He has all his employees identity information! SS#s, bank direct deposit account information ALL of it! He holds back pay for a few weeks at the start, which enables him later to keep your last few weeks of pay you had coming before avoiding you forever. I still have ALL the official work orders printed out when he was subcontracting for another legit and reputable company. He did not pay me for the last 4 weeks of work. I could not quit because the company he subcontracted under was hiring me directly and would not have been able to if I had quit. I still work for the good main company, and they FIRED Charles, aka Mark. His real name is Charles A Johnson, I had done some research on him back then, now it seems he has to use fake names because he wore his real name and all its variations out. Ripoffreport.com has listings on him. They are all true. Except the positive replies seem to be from him defending himself. If anyone knows of a group of ripped off ex employees suing him or gathering information for his arrest please say so. I will gladly share what I have. I am not leaving my name here because he is clearly in my opinion going to use names of past employees as an alias going forward. It has been a good couple years since he was terminated as a subcontractor for a good company running real legit service calls. They would pay him for the services and he would pay his employees a smaller cut from that. Seeing these replies to the blog refreshes my frustration regarding him, and paints a clearer picture that his actions go beyond ripping off employees. They extend into real identity theft in my opinion. Anyone who worked for him in the past please check your credit reports.
Email me at heisacrook@yahoo.com
I emailed you and yes I am the author of this post 🙂
Hi Past Employee,
I would like to update a blog on him – if I get enough info. I have an individual that I am conversing with via email and other requests pending. It would be a good time to contact me when you can. teksquisite over at gmail.
Thanks,
/Bev
Sadly, they keep getting away with fraud.
Chuck Adams/Charles Johnson got us to do several months of software development work for Technical Deployment Services and now there is no contact or response from either him or Nicole Smith. Several thousand dollars of bills are pending and not a penny paid.
Yeah,
I’m a victim. I went to work for them while i was between full time postions. They sent a visa debit that I was supposed to get paid from. I had to send in some info on short notice to get it activated (which never happened). “Chuck” told me to call “Diane” with my account information for direct deposite reasons. I did seven tickets never saw a dime. I talked to my attourney about this firm. He is now looking into it. The tickets were last year btw.
Thanks for posting 🙂 Sorry to hear about your situation and I hope that you are able to achieve resolution.
/Bev
They did the same thing to me. They have different names, Mark, Charles, chuck adams, Alafia, khasha. Worked for them, paid me with bad checks. lies and rude.
They have a contract with NVA animal hospital.
If you have a lawyer ask him to contact me.
They need to stop.
This been going on for too long.
Hi Shayne – thanks for stopping by. I had some serious problems with my blog today – that is why I was so surprised that you were able to post here. Anyway – he is still conducting business in the states and not busted yet? Send me an email and we can discuss – thank you 🙂
/Bev
Chuck just contacted me today 5/14/14 to do work for him tomorrow in Rochester Michigan i always do my homework before i work for anyone and cant believe all this fraud shit about this guy!!
i could easily set this guy up tomorrow because he wanted me to help him swap out computer systems at some type of doctors office, but i dont know if this guy is actually WANTED or What the police could even doo.
I am hoping that some of the original guys that posted here will come back to comment 🙂
I am going to see if I can get Pearce to drop in 🙂
please email me I may be able to help you.
Sorry to hear about your problems with them – specifically since the majority of techs I contacted, never registered there either.
I received a “forwarded” BCC email from “Mark” sent to the programmer (Vinay) – I do not know what his agenda was with that email because it was obvious to me that he was trying to convince me that the programmer was the scammer…
Thanks for the update and please keep the Tekblog posted 🙂
Cheers,
/Bev
I sent them an email demanding that they remove me from the site as an active resource, since I never signed up with them. The response I got via voice mail was that I had performed work for them on one of the platforms. I was listed as having done 85 wo’s and one back out. I have not performed more then 85 work orders on any platform and way more then 85 thru my direct sources. Also i advised them that my attorney would be in contact with them by the end of business that day if they did not remove me. In the voice mail they sent me stated ” we have not done anything wrong”. Since this has blown up in their face, it is now impossible to search for techncians off the front end of the site as it was before.
Can you provide the source code? My contact email is here: https://teksquisite.com/company/
Here is my story where mark, chuck and nicole mugged me up.
http://bewareofnicolesmith.blogspot.in/
I have their site as proof that I was mugged up.
Thanks so much! It is too bad you are anonymous! I did post a comment in the first blog and hope that you contact me soon!
I have information that may help if you are still looking for Charles Johnson. Please email me at heisacrook@yahoo.com
Great post. I also found this: http://bewareofnicolesmith.blogspot.com/ and http://techniciandeployment1.blogspot.com/
– apparently he’s also ripping off the programmers he uses to build his websites.
Thanks George, great suggestion and you are right – I just edited it for you 🙂
/Bev
A really good post. You might change characteristic #1 to read instead:
1. They are searchable via the major search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo
Google isn’t the only search engine.
George