> "Josh Adler - the son of Kerry Adler, a wealthy Canadian businessman - presided over a culture of instability, resulting in high turnover of staff and errors due to "cutting corners" and hiring and firing inexperienced contractors"
> "he "bragged" about living at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Abu Dhabi, boasted about renting a villa in Bali, and showed off a newly purchased Porsche 911 and multiple speeding fines"
Ironically, many of his victims appear to be average people who have invested their personal savings (one actually remortgaging her house) in a website/app idea.
swiftcoder · 1h ago
I never get why these types always end up running such naked scams - he’s clearly got a gift for sales, with a decent technical founder to back him up, they could be rolling in dough without failing to deliver the actual product
figassis · 13m ago
One issue is agencies can have vague contracts because customers did not have a good grasp of what they actually needed, start increasing scope in subtle ways. For example, you deliver a feature and during CAT they find a way to inject new requirements as if they were defects.
These agencies usually don’t have lawyers, so new contracts are full of exploitable holes. You say “we’ll build an e-commerce app with inventory management”, without specifying exactly what inventory management means, your client will start experimenting on your dime and can easily make it seem like it’s your fault. The larger the client, the worse this becomes.
You should always, always make your contracts as specific as possible, but this requires consulting work to nail down requirements before a contract is finalized, and that has a cost, but clients don’t value this and want you “the expert” to magically fill in the blanks in their ideas like an LLM, for free.
Another issue is your team. You might be very competent, but your team might not, hiring is hard. I once had to fire half of my team and build a 6 month client project in 1 month at great cost to my work / life balance because they were just unable to make meaningful progress. Granted, my leadership was not top notch there (being too busy to check on progress and trusting standups is a bad strategy) and I learned a lot, adjusted accordingly.
These are a few counter examples, but I still believe if this is a pattern then you’re a crook.
itsoktocry · 3m ago
Theme: normal people who know nothing about technology "have an idea for an app" with no clue what that actually entails.
It's a shame they got swindled, but the company had totally unrealistic proposals. I bet these people scoffed at quotes from legitimate shops. How so many people will invest their life savings without doing much research is astonishing.
These are the same people who will now pay for AI slop.
dom96 · 1h ago
It's depressing that most startups fail whereas some rich kid can just scam people into giving him money to make his startup "successful".
anshumankmr · 55m ago
I know a couple of people who have sort of done that, including one person who made an app to view all books in all libraries of Delhi. He bought a nice sedan with his seed money and bragged about it. (probably worth a few lakhs easily, not like a high end one but better than what I had cause I had just graduated and was interning)
dsq · 13m ago
>app to view all books in all libraries of Delhi
Is this an example of a scam or a legit app? Sounds nice but not profitable.
sublimefire · 2h ago
There is some talent to pull in customers for sure, but the dude has no interest in delivering and just lies about the possibilities.
guiriduro · 1h ago
cf bait and switch, pervasive moral hazard of poorly regulated markets, and I include major stock exchanges in that. Anyone can sell anyone an attractive lie (and this goes beyond economics to include e.g. voter preferences), but that is not a particular "talent", more the mark of a sociopath.
jongjong · 2h ago
>> So don't tell the client that it cannot be done because we'll find [a contractor] that can do it when they've paid
As a software developer (who did contract work in the past). I think this is actually sound logic within certain parameters... Sometimes clients do ask for impossible or infeasible things. But in most cases, the constraints are money and skills. Someone who is good at sales should not have to reject clients because something is difficult. There are plenty of skilled software devs who are looking for opportunities. It's just unfortunate that talent discovery is broken and sales people cannot find technical people who are capable of delivering working products.
In theory there isn't anything wrong with promising something you don't have but which you know you can access through the markets. The real problem occurs when you think you can access something through the markets but, really, you can't because that particular market is dysfunctional.
IMO, the software developer market is highly dysfunctional. There are people straight out of university who know nothing and can't deliver anything on their own earning over $200k per year and seasoned experts who can deliver anything barely earning 100k.
catgary · 55m ago
> Someone who is good at sales should not have to reject clients because something is difficult.
What does that even mean, honestly? Because I would argue that a salesperson who doesn’t accurately represent the product or service they’re selling is a conman, and I think there is a fair bit of established law on the subject.
admissionsguy · 42m ago
> There are people straight out of university who know nothing and can't deliver anything on their own earning over $200k per year and seasoned experts who can deliver anything barely earning 100k.
In my model of the world, there is exactly one country in the world that values skilled labor, the US. The highly skilled 100k people from abroad are firewalled from it by the visa regime and the fact that most people with money have IQ too low to effectively work remotely (so they have to work in person to be able to assess the vibes of a person using their lizard brain).
The 200k kids are from good families (hence psychologically stable) joining established orgs where the important thing is to be a good cog shapeable into a decent engineer rather than just the ability to deliver.
nikanj · 1h ago
"It's not impossible, you are just obstinate. Get it done or we find someone with more skills"
> Eventually, she requested a refund through her bank and complained to the UK's Financial Ombudsman Service. A senior investigator there has provisionally recommended that the bank return $39,000 (£30,000) to Amy, according to documents seen by the BBC. She is still waiting for her bank to agree to the recommendation.
Glad that this is possible in the UK. There are a ton of folks in Dubai itself who have fallen to similar scams, but they have had no reprieve from their banks (most of which are actually all too happy to facilitate those scams).
chrisstu · 1h ago
And guess who is paying for her mistake? Everyone except the perpetrator. That bank refund comes from somewhere.
dtech · 1h ago
In my country this is only possible if enough funds are in the target account (banks coorporate), it's not a general customer refund...
graemep · 53m ago
In the UK if the funds cannot be recovered the bank takes the loss for push fraud.
It has made banks very nervous about transfers as even payments to a legitimate business can be part of a a fraud (e.g. buy gold and hand it over to the fraudster for "safe keeping") and people have complained they have had problems making legitimate transfers.
Symbiote · 42m ago
It seems unfair to other customers of the bank to require the bank to "return" 75% of the money.
This should be a matter for business insurance.
graemep · 2m ago
Small businesses will often not have business insurance, and private individuals will not.
I doubt insurance covers this sort of thing though.
ti is quite annoying getting "is this a fraud?" warnings on every transfer - even small amounts to my kids!
maccard · 2h ago
I whole heartedly disagree. This guy is clearly a crook, I feel horrible for the woman but this is basic B2B contracts. Banks shouldn’t be the arbiter of B2B contract terms.
petesergeant · 1h ago
I am very curious about who’s downvoting this; do people really think it’s the bank’s responsibility?
mmarq · 34m ago
My understanding is that when you transfer large sums (such as 30K) to an overseas account for the first time, the British bank is required to block it and ask you questions.
The first time I transferred money to an overseas account in my name, the bank blocked the transfer for a day until I gave them proof that I was the owner of the account, what I was doing with the money and that I wasn’t being scammed.
maccard · 4m ago
These are for personal bank accounts. Business banking is different.
graemep · 51m ago
Probably people who do not understand how the UK system works and think the banks are just recovering the money rather than taking a loss when the money canot be recovered.
a_victorp · 1h ago
Except that she still hasn't received the money back yet
luckylion · 2h ago
How does that work? Her bank is responsible for the delivery of services she agrees on with third parties in other countries?
fakedang · 1h ago
I honestly don't know. That's why I'm surprised the UK actually has provisions for clawing back funds. Maybe they put adequate pressure on the Dubai-based banks to reverse the transfer?
The best thing about tech is that technology becomes a commodity very quickly.
Now you don't need to pay huge sums of money to these consultant grifters any more as now AI tools like Cursor, Windsurf, Devin, Bolt, Lovable and Replit can build these apps and websites for you almost for free.
I nearly signed off a six figure deal for someone to make an app for us and we instead went down the AI tools route after some evaluation and prototyping and we saved a lot of money on this to get it built.
This was very sad to read and I wish these people found these tools at all or even sooner rather than plowing their money into scammers.
graemep · 50m ago
What did you build?
I have not seen an example of anything that should cost six figures done by traditional development done using AI tools.
dakiol · 1h ago
Don’t get it. Cheaper ways of doing software have been always available; that doesn’t mean they are the best way. You get what you pay for, as usual. Anybody thinking that 2025 AI is some sort of magical “free lunch” device, is just delusional.
efnx · 1h ago
Agreed, either you get bit by your choice early on and can’t ship, or you ship and get bit later when trying to maintain the puddle of guck you just shipped.
If you don’t know how to do it, you don’t know how to do it. Learn how to do it.
eastbound · 2h ago
But tech has always been un-navigable.
Yes, many things can do rapid prototyping, especially for CRUD apps. And yes, professional programmers can go very fast with the right tech. Unfortunately in most cases, programmers use what they know, because discovering the tool that already does 99% of what you’re customer needs is already a lot of work.
So people who are out of the loop clearly won’t know about Bolt or Claude.
hsbauauvhabzb · 35m ago
AI vibe coders are just another stream of frauds.
fakedang · 2h ago
Sorry, but these tools are far from usable for the average run-of-the-mill guy. They are specifically tailored for developers and people who can code. The people who were scammed were literally average folks, a working mum, a tarot-card reader, a truck driver....
If a scammer wants to, they can flee from all repercussions without building anything, even if all the AI tools were available to them. While Josh Adler is just one person, there are multiple such people in Dubai who've done the same to thousands of victims. Dubai is notorious for attracting those types.
tapotatonumber9 · 1h ago
This wouldn’t be the first time “tarot card reader” and “scammed” have appeared in the same sentence.
peterpost2 · 51m ago
Not sure why she would go to national media. Seems clear that she can't be too good at her job.
> "he "bragged" about living at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Abu Dhabi, boasted about renting a villa in Bali, and showed off a newly purchased Porsche 911 and multiple speeding fines"
Ironically, many of his victims appear to be average people who have invested their personal savings (one actually remortgaging her house) in a website/app idea.
These agencies usually don’t have lawyers, so new contracts are full of exploitable holes. You say “we’ll build an e-commerce app with inventory management”, without specifying exactly what inventory management means, your client will start experimenting on your dime and can easily make it seem like it’s your fault. The larger the client, the worse this becomes.
You should always, always make your contracts as specific as possible, but this requires consulting work to nail down requirements before a contract is finalized, and that has a cost, but clients don’t value this and want you “the expert” to magically fill in the blanks in their ideas like an LLM, for free.
Another issue is your team. You might be very competent, but your team might not, hiring is hard. I once had to fire half of my team and build a 6 month client project in 1 month at great cost to my work / life balance because they were just unable to make meaningful progress. Granted, my leadership was not top notch there (being too busy to check on progress and trusting standups is a bad strategy) and I learned a lot, adjusted accordingly.
These are a few counter examples, but I still believe if this is a pattern then you’re a crook.
It's a shame they got swindled, but the company had totally unrealistic proposals. I bet these people scoffed at quotes from legitimate shops. How so many people will invest their life savings without doing much research is astonishing.
These are the same people who will now pay for AI slop.
Is this an example of a scam or a legit app? Sounds nice but not profitable.
As a software developer (who did contract work in the past). I think this is actually sound logic within certain parameters... Sometimes clients do ask for impossible or infeasible things. But in most cases, the constraints are money and skills. Someone who is good at sales should not have to reject clients because something is difficult. There are plenty of skilled software devs who are looking for opportunities. It's just unfortunate that talent discovery is broken and sales people cannot find technical people who are capable of delivering working products.
In theory there isn't anything wrong with promising something you don't have but which you know you can access through the markets. The real problem occurs when you think you can access something through the markets but, really, you can't because that particular market is dysfunctional.
IMO, the software developer market is highly dysfunctional. There are people straight out of university who know nothing and can't deliver anything on their own earning over $200k per year and seasoned experts who can deliver anything barely earning 100k.
What does that even mean, honestly? Because I would argue that a salesperson who doesn’t accurately represent the product or service they’re selling is a conman, and I think there is a fair bit of established law on the subject.
In my model of the world, there is exactly one country in the world that values skilled labor, the US. The highly skilled 100k people from abroad are firewalled from it by the visa regime and the fact that most people with money have IQ too low to effectively work remotely (so they have to work in person to be able to assess the vibes of a person using their lizard brain).
The 200k kids are from good families (hence psychologically stable) joining established orgs where the important thing is to be a good cog shapeable into a decent engineer rather than just the ability to deliver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
Glad that this is possible in the UK. There are a ton of folks in Dubai itself who have fallen to similar scams, but they have had no reprieve from their banks (most of which are actually all too happy to facilitate those scams).
https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-to-do-if...
It has made banks very nervous about transfers as even payments to a legitimate business can be part of a a fraud (e.g. buy gold and hand it over to the fraudster for "safe keeping") and people have complained they have had problems making legitimate transfers.
This should be a matter for business insurance.
I doubt insurance covers this sort of thing though.
ti is quite annoying getting "is this a fraud?" warnings on every transfer - even small amounts to my kids!
The first time I transferred money to an overseas account in my name, the bank blocked the transfer for a day until I gave them proof that I was the owner of the account, what I was doing with the money and that I wasn’t being scammed.
Now you don't need to pay huge sums of money to these consultant grifters any more as now AI tools like Cursor, Windsurf, Devin, Bolt, Lovable and Replit can build these apps and websites for you almost for free.
I nearly signed off a six figure deal for someone to make an app for us and we instead went down the AI tools route after some evaluation and prototyping and we saved a lot of money on this to get it built.
This was very sad to read and I wish these people found these tools at all or even sooner rather than plowing their money into scammers.
I have not seen an example of anything that should cost six figures done by traditional development done using AI tools.
If you don’t know how to do it, you don’t know how to do it. Learn how to do it.
Yes, many things can do rapid prototyping, especially for CRUD apps. And yes, professional programmers can go very fast with the right tech. Unfortunately in most cases, programmers use what they know, because discovering the tool that already does 99% of what you’re customer needs is already a lot of work.
So people who are out of the loop clearly won’t know about Bolt or Claude.
If a scammer wants to, they can flee from all repercussions without building anything, even if all the AI tools were available to them. While Josh Adler is just one person, there are multiple such people in Dubai who've done the same to thousands of victims. Dubai is notorious for attracting those types.