Direct Staffing Services

Jesus –

Victim Location 63401

Type of a scam Employment

Hello

I filed previously about this company and the man who is listed in the Alert. <span title="https://www.bbb.org/us/wa/seattle/profile/employment-agencies/direct-staffing-services-1296-1000074602
https://www.bbb.org/us/wa/seattle/profile/employment-agencies/direct-staffing-se… />
If my complaint isn’t readily available to you is he contacted me about a job opening at Verizon. He said they wanted to move forward with me. Then stated I needed Scrum Master Certification or proof that I’m working towards it. He gave me a few companies to choose from to take the classes. I’m not sure what is going on here. The school is legitimate. Their certification is recognized in the industry. I never gave Mr Major any money. Possibly someone at the training company is skimming the $ with him? I can’t figure it out.

I filed with BBB and two days later he contacted me that I had a phone interview set up with an HR manager at Verizon. I looked up the man on LinkedIn and he exists as an HR manager at Verizon. I almost contacted the BBB and was going to ask if I should retract my report because everything seemed to be real. I had the interview, it was a standard job interview. No request for my personal information. I got off the phone and felt like I just had a great interview.

A few days later I contacted the man at Verizon via LinkedIn to thank him/follow up. He has no idea who I am or what I was talking about. I was humiliated. Not sure why they went to the effort to steal someone’s identify and go through the effort of the interview unless it was to prevent anymore issues for them.

I contacted Chris Major and told him what happened with the man on LinkedIn. I also copied the link to the BBB alert. I have not heard back.

Chris Major has a very American name and has an Indian or middle eastern accent. The man I interviewed with had a British accent. Not sure if that helps.

Please do something about this person.

Catherine –

Victim Location 19432

Total money lost $599

Type of a scam Employment

My story is the same as all the other reports here re Chris Major and Direct Staffing. I was contacted by a recruiter named Benjamin on 6/10/19 about a remote Senior Business Analyst position. After a brief conversation he said his colleague Chris would send me details of the position. Email came right away from Chris Major (followed by a phone call) with what seemed like a reasonable position description. I mentioned that I did not have scrum master certification and "Chris" (who had an obvious non American accent) said yes, you would need at least proof that I was registered. Many perfectly valid recruiters in I.T. have accents and will use an Americanized name so I let that go. I mentioned the scrum alliance organization to which he said he was unfamiliar with them. This should have been a GIANT red flag as I now know they are the main provider of scrum materials.

He offered to send me a list of Verizon preferred training vendors which arrived seconds later. Another red flag. He clearly had that email cued up and ready to go. But the organizations on the list were legitimate so I let it go. Of course the cheapest and quickest certification was through course infotech. I later learned that organization is not respected at all by most people but they did provide the training and certification, which I paid $599 for. I suspect that "Chris" is either a salesperson for course infotech or someone who gets a kickback for people registering.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to have the promised interview with Al Jackson at Verizon. On Linked In Al is an African American Male. I’m expecting him to have a non American accent just the same. It is interesting that after getting me to purchase the training they are still maintaining the charade.

The work as someone else mentioned was supposed to be to help Verizon put together 5G in the UK.

Miguel –

Victim Location 63401

Type of a scam Employment

I received a call from this person who claimed to have a remote position available with Verizon. He even sent me a job description and went over the position over the phone. He said the position required Scrum Master certification or show that I was ‘in progress’ of getting it. I told him I have a certain online class organization that I do my training through but he pointed me to another that was $500 cheaper. I did not give him money. He did require though that I send him the copy of my course purchase so he could turn it over to Verizon. The online school so far is credible. I have asked them to confirm my account. Waiting to hear back. He was very good at being convincing. He no longer answers calls or email. His name is Chris Major. I see that someone else has filed a complaint here about the same man.

<span title="https://www.bbb.org/us/wa/seattle/profile/employment-agencies/direct-staffing-services-1296-1000074602/details#Alert
https://www.bbb.org/us/wa/seattle/profile/employment-agencies/direct-staffing-se… />
The following day I received a call from a woman named Kim from Direct Staffing Services. Her phone no longer works.

I wish I did my research. Their website seems professional but none of the people or company are on LinkedIn.

Alex –

Victim Location 89123

Type of a scam Employment

I was contacted by phone, caller left a voice mail "Hi, this is Kim from direct Staffing Services. We are recruiting and Staffing Company. Currently, we are hiring for senior business analyst position. It is a remote Job full time work from home. If you’re comfortable working in remote position and looking for a job or a job change. Please give me a call back on my cell phone number 266-220-6026 620-200-2060. Thank you."

I had a weird feeling about this from the start, but this scam went the extra mile toward authentic. I’m still not sure what happened.

I returned the call and engaged in phone conversations multiple times May 3-29. I spoke with Kim and one other other person with thick accent so I didn’t get his name. I was contacted by "Senior Recruiter" Chris Major by email and twice by phone. First conversation was regarding from where I should obtain SCRUM Certification. I was sent 3 options with links by email. Two of the three were $1,000+ the third $599. I chose the third and obtained materials and online training. I was set up for an interview with AL JACKSON from Verizon. There was an interview. Could have been with the same guy I’d been corresponding with all the time, same accents across al participants.

In the end I do have a certification, one I don’t need nor would have sought out, but the company did deliver training. Direct Staffing Services is no longer at the other end of the phone numbers, and these reports appeared as my engagement was happening.

Colleen –

Victim Location 78641

Type of a scam Employment

Contacted by a company claiming to be a staffing company called: Direct Staffing Services

They claimed to be hiring IT Professionals for Verizon.

The job title was: IT Director

The job required Scrum Master certification.

The scammer provided me with a link to sign up for an online course. (this set off a red-flag)

The scammer tried to convince me that signing up for the online course would be faster and cheaper than taking a course at an accredited training facility.

Anna –

Victim Location 64089

Type of a scam Employment

Direct Staffing Services contacted me regarding a remote position for a Sr. Project Manager. I was advised by Chris Major and a gentleman named Benjamin that Verizon has short listed me for an interview after the reviewed my resume. I was then asked to sign up for a scrum master course to show that a certification was in process. They provided me with an on-line course website that cost $599. I was told I couldn’t proceed with the interview until I enrolled in the course. I did not enroll and ask them to remove my candidacy

Alison –

Victim Location 30024

Type of a scam Employment

Similar to what I’ve seen from others when I started researching. They (Benjamin originally calls and then Chris emails the fictional job opportunity) and lead you to believe the opportunity is real…Then, there is a missing criteria for a skill/certification. When I explained that I had just finished a class for the missing skill, I was told it was not a recognized class even though the certification does not require any classes to be taken. Chris tried to tell me erroneous facts about the certification and I politely corrected him. He was going to take my info back to the employer and get back to me. Obviously he didn’t but I called their bluff before they tried to extract fees from me. He was already setting the stage to direct me to a class through them.

Martin –

Victim Location 78251

Total money lost $599

Type of a scam Online Purchase

i received an email with a job offer. they asked to look over a job post and check if i met the qualifications. they then asked me to sign up for a scrum master course to show that a certification was in process. I was asked to purchase the course for $999 and to submit proof. when i saw this notice posted on your site, i reached out to Info Tech and asked for a refund but they denied it even if the refund policy states i can get 90% refund as long as its before 48 hours of signing up for the course. i let them know i would be reaching out to my bank and they said they know how to win a dispute.

Hi XXX

I have shared your resume with the company and they are very interested in moving ahead with the interview process so we need following 3 documents to submit you for this position:

1) Updated Resume

2)Scrum Enrollment Proof

3)Right to represent form(Please see the attachment)

I have also asked for recommendations for the good institutes for scrum certification which are accepted by corporate companies.

These class are used by the hiring companies and they all includes your training and examination both.

Steven –

Victim Location 34604

Type of a scam Employment

I was contacted by someone (didn’t catch their name, but was obviously Eastern Indian) from a staffing company letting me know of a position of Sr. IT Director with Verizon Wireless, working from home, for a high, but not out of the ordinary salary of $170-190k. I had made this working in a similar role with another wireless service provider. This was supposedly for a 5G deployment project in the UK as described by the scammer. Verizon isn’t in the UK, but did have some relations with Vodafone in the past, so maybe that’s plausible. They had me explain how comfortable I am with working from home, they said they would pass me to their supervisor who would share my resume with Verizon. The next day I received a second call from a different Eastern Indian representing themselves from the same company stating what I had heard already the previous afternoon. I told them that I was already contacted and I was expecting a call from the lead recruiter. They said that was their boss and ended the call. I then received a call from Chris Major (Eastern Indian accent) telling me that I was in the running for this position, but I need to have a Scrum certification or show that I was in progress for one. I knew of this certification and googled the requirements for obtaining it and it required a 2 day in person training from a certified Scrum instructor. I told Chris that I would sign up for one, but there wasn’t one near me for a couple of weeks. He stated that I needed to show enrollment for the position to which I told him I’d sign up for it and send him the info. He asked what company the training was from and said he never heard of it and it needed to be a specific training company to be acceptable for Verizon. He sent a list of three training companies and two were more expensive and didn’t have online training or anything near me for a couple of months. The third one was for courseinfotech.com and was an online class (not valid for the Scrum certification). At this point I felt they’d triggered enough red flags for me to look up the involved companies.

Cristina –

Victim Location 90630

Type of a scam Employment

The job was advertised on one of the job boards, instructing for the resume to be submitted to Chris Major. I was contacted and told that my resume was short listed for an interview with Verizon. I was asked to sign up for a scrum master course to show that I had scrum master certification in process. The online class was 599. When I did further research, I discovered this is an employment / recruiter scam based in India. The job offer is fake, and they try to get money from you through a training class. Once I told them I did not have the funds for the class, I did not hear from them anymore. BEWARE.

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