Trust me

So I nearly got conned.  If I hadn't already been broke I could have lost a lot of money.  Others did.  Dr Aaliyah is a real talent.  Smooth, persuasive, credible in short bursts.  She came up with what is in fact a really good idea - a training company focussed entirely on Arabs in general and Emiratis in particular.  There's a lot of focus here on Emiritisation and consequently there's a lot of money to be made.  And as yet not many exploiting the niche.

It doesn't take a lot of capital to start a small training company but it does take some.  There are licences to be acquired here and that means premises; there are staff to hire and marketing to be done.  You can start small and grow.

But the good doctor had 'plans' though it seems these plans never included paying for anything or anyone.  Suffice it to say that after some 4 months operation staff and contractors remain unpaid and licences un-obtained.  All of which is really sad because the sales team have secured business and are ready to run.

So the 'con'?  Look for investors, lots of small ones interested in being involved but not risking a big sum of money.  In this case she's discovered that AED250k or about $60k seems to bring a balance between being small enough for many people to risk and big enough to warrant the risks of being caught.  And it looks to me after a few months of being involved and two solid weeks of poking around where I should have poked long before that she's found around 6 or 7 suckers to stump up the money, sometimes in cash and always with nothing more than a signed document.  No official stamps, no registrations at the Dubai government, no basic due diligence by anyone.  It's The Producers translated to the desert except it's not funny.

Temptation and greed are odd things in that they overcome the most rational of people who don't want to see what's plainly visible.  A promise from a convincing speaker of your money back in a year and profits of 25% plus is close to being believable if you mentally squint. And when she included 25% of the equity it sealed the deal - several times.  Of course her 75% and 6 lots of 25% represents a mathematical problem in the real world.  But not if you slip in a decimal point on the documents - after the fact.

To the learning points then and it's a really simple set; one some Mr Madoff's victims should have considered too:

-  If it seems too good to be true then it probably is too good to be true
- Trust nothing, check everything; twice
- Everybody lies

Business is no place for *blind* faith.   Leave that for church.