Modus Operandi: Poses as an investor to be wined and dined, then disappears | Hacker News Reader

Modus Operandi: Poses as an investor to be wined and dined, then disappears

cecileortlieb.com

106 pointslevifig42 comments

I have extensive experience prosecuting cases like this and would be happy to assist the OP. I ask that he fly me to New York City at his earliest convenience (after wiring me a good-faith deposit) so that we may discuss this in person.

I'm rather confused why not contact a lawyer and pursue legal action?

world-glance.com screams caution since there is so much missing, team info, personal names & bios, contact, address, etc. and it was only registered in Feb 2015 and has whois privacy protection

http://whois.domaintools.com/world-glance.com

privacy protection is not normally an issue but when a COMPANY (not personal!) webpage has no personal details, address, phone, etc. it is a huge redflag

don't mean to criticize a victim of fraud but no reputable VC or investor would be asking for money for petty expenses like a cab or flight, etc.

The whole point of this is that they are the ones that are supposed to have money and they may or may not give it to you.

Not the other way around :/

But I get it, she was using the 'boiling frog' strategy

I agree. Also, publishing this stuff online might weaken his legal hand.

Absolutely, the owner of this website could be sued for slander. If everything in this story is true then just sue Cecile because she obviously committed fraud, the case should be a slam dunk. Then expose her once she has been sentenced to prison.

edit:

Cecile's website is a joke :

http://world-glance.com/

Does it look like a serious VC to anybody? there is absolutely no information whatsoever. Remember the legend about about nigerian scammers? they make it so obvious it is a scam to screen people, that website feels a bit like that.

Slander is for false statements, it doesn't look like these are false.

That would presuppose Celine has money to afford lawyers, if she does, that would be the point to recover the funds, and/or countersue for fraud.

> sue Cecile... Then expose her once she has been sentenced to prison.

First, if you sue someone, it's a civil action, not a criminal prosecution.

Second, if any statements are defamatory, they would be libel, not slander.

Third, truth is an absolute defense against libel claims. (And just for completeness, the U.S. does not have criminal libel laws.)

> the U.S. does not have criminal libel laws

Some states do have criminal-libel laws, though there isn't a federal one. See: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/criminal-libel-statutes-...

Quite right. I should have been more clear: Criminal libel laws may still be in the statute books, much like laws may still exist requiring someone carrying a red flag to walk in front of horseless carriages. But we should expect prosecutions under criminal libel laws to fail because of the modern interpretation of the First Amendment (and state constitutional protections that may be broader).

For instance a court in the 1990s struck down Montana's criminal libel law as unconstitutional: https://casetext.com/case/state-v-helfrich-1 But as far as I know it is still on the books.

Between:

a) absolutely horrible, meaningless copy.

b) A very poorly designed website.

c) a very weird photo of gazelle which appears to have been taken from aliexpress.com (http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Animal-Gazelle-2-Poster-3-Siz...)

d) a host shared by another 18,000 websites (according to Bing)

This company genuinely does not look real. I understand that the writer would be extremely excited by the prospect of a $4m investment, but I also feel like he should have done a little more due diligence. Based on what I see, I can't imagine genuinely expecting to receive $4m from this firm...

Hi there -- please share how one can find out how many websites are sharing a host via Bing.

Thanks!

Just use DNSstuff. Her site is simply a branded Wordpress.com account.

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools#dnsReport|type=domain&&value=c...

Two things. First, cecileortlieb.com is not actually Cecile's website - it is the website that hosted that article which claims that she is a scammer.

Cecile claims to be with world-glance.com. He site would be here:

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools#dnsReport|type=domain&&value=w...

Second, dnsstuff is great - I haven't used it before, but I have it bookmarked now.

Hi there;

I don't know if Bing's numbers are completely accurate and you may find better ways to get this information (dnsstuff.com is sure useful). In this case, I was looking into world-glance.com so I will use that website as an example.

1) ping world-glance.com - this shows an IP address of 94.136.40.15

2) Go to bing.com - search for 'IP:94.136.40.15' (without the quotes)

It will show 18,800 results.

I hope that this helps...:)

So you imply that the website claiming Cecile is a scammer, is a scammer, too. That's possible but the suspicions you talked about are not conclusive.

Last week I've come across a website called tinnitusmiracle.com and a person called Duane claimed that that website was a scammer by presenting convincing evidences; see (http://fixedgear808.blogspot.com.tr/2015/03/tinnitus-miracle...)

Oh no, not at all...

Rather, I went to http://world-glance.com/ (aka Cecile's website), gave it a quick read, checked out the images, and figured out where it was hosted.

Between those things, World Glance does not look very professional.

I'm sorry that I wasn't more clear!!!

If all she's been getting out of the "potential investor" scam is free dinners/trips/etc. and doesn't have significant assets, suing her is probably a money-losing proposition.

As the author mentioned, perhaps she stole something from their house or normally would but the camera's made her stray from her usual tactics.

since i don't know how to contact you elsewhere, I am going to ask in a thread. I just noticed in your profile you mentioned moving from copenhagen to the US. what happened?

Family & work reasons. My parents live in the U.S., and I had a contract position at a university in Copenhagen that was extended a few times and recently ended, so it was a good time for a move. Copenhagen's a nice place to live though!

Thanks for the reply, I will miss your insights on HN about copenhagen and denmark!

Presumably that isn't her name.

I was thinking the same thing, but if he was booking her plane tickets (or other people have in the past) would they not need to book user her real name (so it matches her passport).

> I'm rather confused why not contact a lawyer and pursue legal action?

It sounds like all she really got was a few meals, lodging for a few days, and a taxi ride.

It would cost the author much more to sue than he could recover.

> I'm rather confused why not contact a lawyer and pursue legal action?

What kind of legal action would you pursue?

She likely has no funds whatsoever to go after. I would contact a lawyer in this case, for sure - but I don't think it makes any sense to pursue legal action here - legal action is very expensive, and it is very likely throwing good money after bad money.

The only actions that make sense to me are police/interpol complaints, and (possibly, depending on lawyer advice) public naming and shaming - which this website does.

Note that the "naming and shaming" doesn't actually give anything back to those who were scammed - it's mostly a public service for the rest of the world.

Sue for what? Cecile sounds very broke to me...

Having read through this, it seems less like she wanted to be wined and dined (given how the "victim" flew to London), and more that she just wanted to seem important. A lot of people want to be VCs; and it turns out you can get most of the VC experience without having money if you just never invest. (On the flip side, a lot of people want to be entrepreneurs but have no product.)

Having been through bad experiences with wannabe investors in the past, I made a rule that I would only ever deal with investors that were well-known or were heavily vouched for by someone I knew that had been invested in by them.

>Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter.

Sounds like a perfect YC founder to me.

http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

I really feel sorry for the guy, but even just a few simple due diligence checks would have shown the company has no money even the accounts are overdue: http://companycheck.co.uk/company/07335249/WORLD-GLANCE-LIMI... http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//compdetails On top of that the website screams fake. A limited company should always show company number and have contact details.

Scammers prey on people who want things so badly that they blind their instincts. I think the lesson is to not be desperate for investment and assume an equal standing of both parties (i.e. the investor is not some superior deity). Also an appropriate due diligence throughout the whole process.

My impression is that much of top-tier financing is riddled with people like her, maybe not as unstable, but just as ruthless and without any empathic regards at all. The only difference is the numbers and the complexity of the scams committed. Spiderwebs of companies, incomprehensible systems and networks of hedge-funds, company-carousels, lobbyism, and straight up corruption. Just look at the scandals of the last ten years.

The fact that webpages like this are not made about them and mostly about low-level charlatans, is because of the legal repercussions.

maybe she is a performance artist making a movie about how out of touch with reality startup executives are.

Cecile's text messages are horribly sloppy regarding spelling and grammar, I'd never trust a person like that.

It's the little things, but I read

> Hindsight is 2020

as "Hindsight is two thousand twenty"

I would invite the writers to use '20-20'.

The expression comes from a measurement of visual acuity, the correct notation would be 20/20.

Or that. Really, anything else than 2020.

What did the police say when you filed a report?

Brian Lefevre

The apartment is so hipster/yapster (bikes on the wall, the kitchen design), it is actually tacky.

This post is worse than Cecile's actions.

She's obviously not right in the head, you are basically saying "Watch out for crazy people", and she has to be the scapegoat for your messaging.

This is super cruel and merciless.

"This is super cruel and merciless." srsly, dude? have we lost all perspective?

I don't think she's "not right in the head", nothing to me said mental health problems. She just seems like she is scamming people and quite smart about it.

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