Valley PR Blog

Is Jason Hope (JAWA/Cylon) A Scam?

By tdhurst on March 21st, 2011 In Best Practices, PR Fail

(UPDATE 5/23/2011: Because Len Gutman decided to shut down this blog, I’ve reposted most of this story at tdhurst.com)

(UPDATE 5/3/2011: Today I was asked if I would consider removing two posts from Valley PR Blog in exchange for $1000. While the person claiming to be Susan Richardson at susan.richardson80@yahoo.com did NOT specify which two posts, it seems reasonable to assume she was referring to my two posts about Jason Hope, as they are the only two related posts by me on this site.

While I won’t claim that my silence couldn’t possibly be bought, $1000 seems like a paltry sum compared to the millions Jason Hope has “earned” through his alleged scams over the years. If I’m going to sell out, it sure as hell be enough money to retire with.

Lavidge never did tell me when and how much Hope donated to the Red Cross as part of fundraising efforts in Japan, but Hope continues to claim to support local charities like the Greater Scottsdale Boys & Girls Club. While I’m sure any Boys and Girls Club could use the money, I wonder if they know exactly where those “donations” are coming from.)

(UPDATE 4/3/11: The Phoenix Business Journal has joined AZCentral in parroting much of what’s already been said about the feud between Hamid Shojaee and Jason Hope. Oh, and The Lavidge Company has so far been unable to give me the exact amount of funds Hope pledged to support Japan, or any confirmation that the money has been sent.)

Text messaging scams suck. Because so many of us pay our cell phone bills without too much scrutiny, we seldom catch them until we’ve been charged for months. And because there’s nothing illegal about preying on consumer laziness when reading fine print, most cell phone companies don’t alert you to such extraneous charges.

You’d think this kind of operation would be handled overseas, but local boy Jason Hope of JAWA has been accused of running a home-grown text messaging scam right here in Scottsdale. Hope’s JAWA isn’t some small startup operating out of someone’s basement, as Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane lauded them extensively in his latest State of The City speech, commenting:

Jawa is a perfect example of our growing tech-sector.

Jawa is located just off the Loop 101 and Raintree Drive, and their story is the kind that keeps me optimistic about Scottsdale.

They are in the mobile communication technology business, and as you may know, that’s a pretty good business to be in these days. It certainly is for Jawa, who quadrupled their workforce in 2010, growing from 50 to 200 employees.

They expanded their Scottsdale office from 10,000 to 50,000 square feet – and they plan to double that next year.

While certainly a business success story, Jawa also is impressive because charitable giving is part of their core business model.

Each month, Jawa makes a monetary donation to a different organization, based off nominations from company employees. Last year they donated nearly $60,000 to local charities like the Boys & Girls Clubs, Ronald McDonald House, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Jawa founder and CEO Jason Hope is with us here this evening – thank you for being here, Jason.
Courtesy of AZRepublic.com

Hamid Shojaee of AZ Disruptors has broken down what he believes to be legitimate claims against Hope, and found that he was victim of a text messaging scam on his own, with around $100 unknowingly charged to his cell phone bill over the past few months. AT&T refunded his fees, but if you’re like most of the rest of us, you probably don’t scrutinize your cell phone bill all that much.

Regardless of Hope’s guilt or innocence, this brings up a larger ethical problem in the PR world. Hope’s website lists ~~Dawn~~* Anne Robertson of The Lavidge Company as their PR rep. (A call and email to Robertson went unanswered Monday morning.)

Do PR companies like Lavidge, who include “We accept responsibility and accountability, and we believe that integrity is our truest asset” as part of their company philosophy, have a responsibility to report suspected unethical or illegal activity, and/or disassociate themselves from a company dealing in allegedly nefarious schemes? I’m not talking about strictly illegal activity, but rather anything that’s less than above the board.

A quick Google search shows nothing but a press release announcing Hope pledging funds to Japan (man, they have quite a distribution list), but only one response to any sort of scam allegations.

While I’m sure PR 101 will tell you that whitewashing negative allegations with lots of good press is a smart move, I can’t help but be a little suspicious of such a ridiculous shotgun approach. Nearly every result from the first THREE pages of search for Lavidge and Hope all point to the same release, which should raise red flags for anyone familiar with SEO tactics.

As long as the checks clear, do PR companies, who obviously deal with reputations for a living, have any sort of obligation to NOT whitewash negativity? Is there a line anywhere?

There absolutely should be. This type of alleged scam is the same crap that drove us into a recession, with too many people taking advantage of loopholes, naïveté and plain old ignorance when it comes to technology or financial matters. Hell, Aol still makes a ton of money from people still paying for dial up while simultaneously subscribing to a broadband connection.

As those who understand what’s going on, we owe it to those that don’t to at least warn them of the lengths people will go to scam them. I believe we should call out any business accused of such unethical behavior, so at least people are aware of such charges. What people do with that information is up to them.

Regardless, I’m definitely going to check my cell phone bill a little harder this month.

Jawa denies any wrongdoing in regards to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the State of Texas and Verizon Wireless.

I changed the headline after this was posted because my first wasn’t descriptive enough.

*I have no idea how I messed up the Lavidge rep’s name, but I did. Her first name is Anne. I have a friend named Don. Maybe that’s why. Weird. Anyway, Anne Robertson is her name, and she still hasn’t called back, but I did receive a call from Lavidge offering information on other suits against Jason Hope/JAWA, all of which have ruled in Hope’s favor. And they wanted me to know I had listed their rep’s name incorrectly.

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Interesting read after seeing the article recently about the party at his house. I hope the allegations are not accurate as it was inspiring to hear of a young entrepreneur who had made it big. Would hate to see if it were not done with ethical business practices.

One good point that was made on AZ Disruptors was that so little of JAWA’s website explains what they do, or what they’ve done. There’s a couple mobile and Facebook apps, but nothing to explain, at least to me, how JAWA keeps growing and expanding, especially during this recession. I’ve been hearing about this company for a while now, and if JAWA is just part of a Jason Hopes text messaging network, then that would certainly make sense in terms of how this guy makes the money he does.

Thanks for posting this. I followed over to Hamid’s article – very informative. I always wondered about what JAWA did and how they made money. I talked to some people that worked there early last year and they never told me what they’re selling. Never. Just that they need talent that knew search marketing.

David – totally agreed. They are ONLY allegations.

Reynolds – Interesting how most companies that expand quickly don’t often do so by completely legal/ethical means.

A year ago, when I was job hunting, I was asked to interview at “Cylon” in North Scottsdale. I immediately wondered, “Don’t they know that is what the bad guys were called in Battlestar Galactica?” Turns out they did.

I tried to research about the company, but their website was vague. It seemed like a web design company. I was immediately impressed with their office. Orange Lamborghini parked out front, 3rd floor with windows overlooking the McDowell mountains. Big screen LCD with rock band (or whatever), pool table, soda and snacks, and yes, authentic Battlestar Galactica props from the TV series hanging on all the walls. Even the logo looked the part. So yes, they did know.

I was excited to get an interview, so I did the talking most of the interview. Near the end I asked them what they did. They said they were in the content business. People subscribe to get exclusive access to sites about sports, video games, etc.

“People pay for that?” “You wouldn’t believe it.” I didn’t. Maybe some will, but the whole thing sounded fishy.

Now that I had a better idea of what they did, I could form a more informed search query on the business. I uncovered thousands of irate people complaining about the business and explaining how to find it on their bill and how to ask AT&T (or whoever) to remove it. I even found some articles written up about them.

To their credit, they turned me down before I could decline.

I hope this blows up. I regret not being vocal about this myself.

You should do a little more digging. Specifically, look at the whois information on some of the domains displaying Mr. Hope’s Japan press release.

[...] sick of seeing that, so I wrote about it on Valley PR Blog. After more research, I realize I’m not the only one who’s posted about it, and [...]

I am reading this article with a big smile on my face, because I love it when scam artists get busted. People like this Jason Hope make me sick, he paid all kids of lame celebrities to come to some party last year. But as an SEO guy I was interested in the results you saw when you did a google search and I did the same thing and all you see is like page after page of bull crap. The articles are all done by some PR company and it is very obvious. This jason hope is a piece of work he basically is preying on kids and its a very unethical practice. There are tons of kids that have cell phones now and they see a commercial on TV that says something like text this number to get cheat codes for video games. Then they get charged forever and make it impossible stop the service. I hope that hope looses everything for being such a crook. He is pathetic, it is obvious that is a scam artist I mean who really needs 30 pages of positive spinned websites?

I’ve recently heard JAWA has hired people for an upcoming project and retracted offers only days later leaving some folks without JOBS because they had resigned already. Now that is not good business practice…This is not an allegation this is a fact.

I’m posting this anonymously for the sake of protecting people I know, and I understand that my anonymity requires that my comment be taken with a grain of salt. That said:

I know people who work at Jawa. One of them laid out the whole thing for me, and made it very clear that it *was* essentially a scam. They do rely on people signing up for recurring fees without realizing what they’re doing. He described his day-to-day work as just doing the code and trying not to think about what it was for.

He gave me specifics on some of the projects, and they really are ingeniously clever in their approaches. They carefully walk the line of “not quite illegal” (in most cases anyway), so it’s easy to justify it away as them simply being clever.

According to this friend of mine, though, what they’re doing is a straight-up scam, and he was fully aware of it.

I’m excited that some light is being shed on this, but I really doubt the ability of the press (or law enforcement) to do anything significant about it. They have no brand to tarnish, and they make so much money that they can easily handle any fines or settlements. You can’t stop something that profitable.

there tactics appear to delve into the Facebook realm, too. In looking at a recent Press Release for the company, it mentions another company that doesn’t quite seem like an actual company. That “company” lists customers…

http://www.theprofileengine.com/
http://www.profiletechnology.net/

Those will all have links to Facebook apps that attempt to gain access to a users personal information (which would mean they would have access to emails/phone numbers). This goes way beyond a text messaging scheme.

Keep digging, Tyler. You’re smart…you’ll uncover A LOT more if you just keep digging.

I think people love to take one side on the matter and not look at the entire picture of things, No one is talking about the company that is suing them and how many lawsuits they have been in everybody always likes to take sides with the big fish with out reading everything ….. Get Your Facts Straight.. then post about it, (dont get all on the band wagon because you didnt get a job here when you tried to get hired

Who actually owns/operates AZ Foothills Magazine/website?

There is an awful lot of press on Jason Hope in that publication, and when you look to see who runs it, it leads to another sketchy website/company called Media that Deelivers. How deep does this rabbit whole go?

We have been investigating this for some time and are initiating a class action lawsuit against all of the entities. If you have been victimized by this scam email cellphonescam@barskidrake.com for more information! The earliest plaintiffs get the most money.

Jaws is a scam hiding behind numerous shell companies. I interviewed there and felt creepy walking around the building. Satelite phones all over the place to conceal calls. Developers who work on 2 week projects and have no idea what marketing stuff is illegally going on. Jason hope is a scum bag and will be going to jail after loosing everything. What a piece of crap ripping people off just to get rich and then use SEO to make it look like he is a good guy. The funny part is that his partner tied to use a financial planner to avoid paying taxes and that guy stole money from him. What loosers these guys are. Hope better hope Verizon settles or they will both be doing jail time for jacketteering.

where there is smoke there is fire: http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2011/03/24/20110324scottsdale-jawa-texting-scam.html

I have no idea what you’re talking about. I published allegations from multiple sources and made sure to reiterate that these were allegations only. I had never heard of Jason Hope or JAWA/Cylon until I read the AZDisruptors article.

Go the AZ County Public records. Search for Jason Hope. Read about HOA scams. Read about DUI’s. Read about spouse abuse. Inform yourself.

It’s a scam. I interviewed with these guys back when the company was called Cylon. As i researched the company i saw a lot of complaints, but i still went to the interview during which it became evident it was very shady and was a cramming operation. Anyway, they were getting negative press and ended up changing their name (big surprise, huh?) to Jawa.

My buddy who works there was telling me months ago they were meeting with people to sell the company. Jason Hope probably knew they were running out of rope.

Jawa/ Cylon makes me work all that much harder. My company is faced with multitudes of prospects that don’t know who to trust. This is my biggest competition, fear from being scammed again! It’s so sad when we deliver credible, guaranteed, proven online marketing services and we have to listen to these scams from our prospects every single day.
The Lavidge Company must have known something was off and I am surprised that they would represent a company like JAWA/Cylon. This is a longtime successful AZ PR firm and they do this. Now who is going to represent Lavidge on this matter?
Thank you for this article. And thank you Valley PR Blog.

Go to website http://www.rwf-ent.com/entrada and then click on “Common Ground Article on Takeover” to read the story of his 2 to 3 year scam on two HOA’s. He’s totally a dishonest and disreputable person that financially hurt about a thousand families on this scam.

I love that not a single person commenting here knows what the F they are even talking about. Everyone loves to jump on the band wagon and none of you even realize that you are all nothing but sheep being herded by Verizon so they can put an HONEST and LEGITIMATE company out of business so they can launch the EXACT SAME SERVICES themselves in order to rake in 100% of the profits instead of the 30% the take now.

JAWA offers a legitimate service offering people original and exclusive content not found anywhere else on the internet combined with the cutting edge technology allowing them to send this information directly to their cell phones at their will.

Do some customers not know they are getting charged? Possibly, I couldn’t tell you. Was the price of this service on every single page in an extremely visible font color and size? Absolutely. It is a standard marketing practice across every single business in the world to make you look where the business wants you to look. Why do you think name brand products are all at eye level in store isles but yet the cheaper off-brand products are all on the bottom? Why do you think the prices are also listed below the products so that the prices of the bottom shelf products can’t even be seen unless you bend over to look? It’s called marketing people! You get duped into buying things and paying more than you should for things every day of your life.

But hey, this guy has money and enjoys his life, so let’s go after him with torches and pitch forks! How dare he own an expensive sports car! You’re all a bunch of sheep and none of you even realize it. Wake up people! Everything you read is not true, hence the word ‘Allegation’.

PersonWhoActuallyKnowsSomething – Nothing is true? Not a single thing I wrote?

Great post and a well-pointed question. I think Lavidge DOES have a responsibility to report this. Frankly, as an entrepreneurial journalist, this sort of stuff doesn’t help the situation of startups that are trying to seek funding, whether or not the allegations are true. Sadly, perceptions – particularly online perceptions – are reality these days.

When I had heard about the Silverleaf home Hope was building, I went digging around the Web as well and found many of the ambiguous and self-promotional sites Hamid at AZ Disruptors mentioned in his column. What was up with that? I wondered. If Jawa was such a great product, it should speak for itself and the creator/founder/visionary should remain in the background (my philosophy).

I’d like to give Hope the benefit of the doubt, but the initial reaction of my “skeptical journalist” senses said something didn’t pass the smell test. We shall see.

Adam -
Lavidge told me that they were hired to promote Hope’s philanthropic efforts and that anything related to the lawsuits were to be handled by his lawyers or a different firm.

It reeks of “we totally have plausible deniability because we didn’t ask any real questions,” which is an effective way to sleep at night. Can’t say I blame Lavidge, nor are they the only ones who might do something like this.

Help available

Verizon Wireless has set up a website for customers who may have signed up and been charged for third-party, premium text-messaging services Verizon charges 30 percent of collected customer fees, resulting in Verizon’s profit of more than $30 million since 2008,
The charges could stem from content associated with Verizon premium text-messaging services, which include ringtones, news alerts, recipes and other content that is delivered for a fee.
The name may not have appeared on the Verizon-issued bill.
Please call your Verizon customer care for a full refund..
Claim information can be found at http://www.premiumsmsrefunds.com. Questions can be directed to 877-866-0631.

[...] these incident regarding Jason Hope of JAWA/Cylon’s alleged text messaging scams are getting a bit more interesting. It seems Hamid over at AZDisruptors has grabbed the attention [...]

For those of us who are truly sickened by Jawa and Jason Hope..it’s time to take the next step. There are only a few days left before Judge David Campbell here in town will decide whether The Texas Attorney General and Verizon have enough evidence to get Jawa shut down. So, I encourage anyone who has relevant facts/evidence pertaining to this case to please reach out to the Texas Attorney Generals Office, the Arizona Attorney General’s office and the Verizon lawyers. They are more than willing to listen to anyone who can give them pertinent information. If you are a former Jawa employee who knows of wrong doing..please speak up.

TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL
Gary L. Adkins, Investigator
(512) 475-4177
gary.adkins@oag.state.tx.us

ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL-Tom Horne
thorne@azag.gov
602.542.2123

VERIZON ATTORNEY’S
Leigh R. Schachter
Assistant General Counsel – Litigation
Phone: 908-559-7441
E-mail: Leigh.schachter@verizonwireless.com

What I find ironic is that with a name like Hope, and all of the Obama “hope” that turned out to be BS as everyone quickly found out, that people just seem to be draw to hope, no matter what.

The funny thing is, is that I applied here and as I was going through the interview process, some of this started coming to light. I asked about it and I told that “There has been some changes at the top and the positions are no longer available”.

Boy was I lucky!

Things happen for a reason, and I am glad.

Hello, everyone. This post has been updated with what I believe was an attempt by Susan Richardson, who I assume is connected to Jason Hope, to pay me to remove two posts on this site. I suspect the two posts were related to Jason Hope.

Lavidge has put out 3 “charity” press releases since Hope’s criminal fraud charges. One release has Hope “pledging” funds to the Red Cross. Another talks of his “continued support” of the Boys and Girls Club. The third release announces “Hope supports food banks.” None of these releases were remotely newsworthy and none contained quotes from the charities themselves, which leads one to believe the charities were never contacted prior to the releases going out?
After contacting the Red Cross and the Boys and Girls Club to make them aware these releases existed…they seemed greatly concerned and said they are “dealing with the issue on a national and local level.”
It appears Lavidge is attaching their clients name to charities in an effort to suppress Hope’s recent bad press. This is just tacky and inappropriate for so many reasons.
For years Hope has been throwing bones to charities or promising to “pledge” in an attempt to distract the community from hearing about allegations of years spent attempting to scam people out of millions of dollars. Prior to the charges related to the recent text scam operation, he was brought up on criminal charges involving an elaborate HOA scam. http://www.rwf-ent.com/entrada/CAI/Index.cfm

There is nothing worse than exploiting charity for personal gain..and the fact that Lavidge is a direct accomplice to this kind of behavior is truly sickening.

JASON R. HOPE, Appellant.

No. 1 CA-CR 10-0500.

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division One, Department E.

Filed May 3, 2011.

William G. Montgomery, Maricopa County Attorney, Phoenix, by Jeffrey W. Trudgian, Deputy County Attorney, Attorneys for Appellee.
Harper Christian Dichter & Sluga, P.C., Phoenix, by Stephen M. Dichter and Alison R. Christian, Attorneys for Appellant.

THIS DECISION DOES NOT CREATE LEGAL PRECEDENT AND MAY NOT BE CITED EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY APPLICABLE RULES. See Ariz. R. Supreme Court 111(c); ARCAP 28(c); Ariz. R. Crim. P. 31.24
MEMORANDUM DECISION
PETER B. SWANN, Presiding Judge.
¶1 Jason Hope (“Appellant”) was subject to wrongful prosecution, and the superior court granted him relief under A.R.S. § 13-4051. After discovering records of the prosecution were still publicly available that did not indicate that he had been cleared, Appellant moved for an order sealing the records. The court denied that motion, and Appellant timely appeals from that denial. We conclude that Appellant is entitled to additional relief under § 13-4051, but that he was not entitled to have the records sealed. We therefore affirm the denial of the motion to seal and remand with instructions.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶2 On February 1, 2007, Appellant was indicted. On July 18, 2008, the trial court granted Appellant’s Motion to Dismiss Indictment Based Upon Vindictive Prosecution, and dismissed all charges with prejudice. On May 13, 2009, in an unsigned minute entry, the trial court granted Appellant relief:
The Court has read and considered Defendant’s Petition for Entry of Clearance of Records Pursuant to A.R.S. § 13-4051.

[...] few days ago, I was offered money to retract public criticism I’d made about a local tech company’s owner. Instead, I told everyone I know about [...]

[...] few months ago, I wrote about Jason Hope of JAWA and his alleged text messaging scams on the now-retired Valley PR Blog. I bashed The Lavidge Company for their involvement, but nothing [...]

What goes around; comes around. I have no doubt that Jason is a cheat, fraud, womanizing zealot that is going to get everything he deserves in the end.

I am going to report his scam on Facebook as I have over 5000 friends who in-turn have even more friends. http://www.facebook.com/sportaviation

I am also going to attach the video on YouTube entitled “Text Message Scams and Cramming, Jawa & Jason Hope, AT&T, Verizon” at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9MQAfh-bCE

You are going down Jason! Sheriff Joe Arpaio will be looking for you soon!

Hey Tyler check this out: Family Court Case History Case Number FC2011-092482 order of protection against Jason Hope wow

[...] few months ago, I wrote about Jason Hope of JAWA and his alleged text messaging scams on the now-retired Valley PR Blog. I bashed The Lavidge Company for their involvement, but nothing [...]

I was on one of the HOA boards that was fooled by Jason. He’s really good. Comments re: DUIs, domestic violence that’s the documented stuff. Easy to find. Hey Jason, it appears you keep up with this blog. I just stumbled across it in error tonight- hi! I’ve always wondered about those stories related to the underage babysitters??? Alchol, sex?? I don’t know about rest of you, but I believe it all- rumors, unsupported accusations in addition to the documented cases against him. It seems like consistant behavior to me. Sherrif Joe..come get this booty call!

I think it’s really funny that Jason donates money to the Boys and Girls Club yet he has NOTHING to do with his oldest son and hasn’t since he was about 8 years old (out of 3 children, by 3 different women). What a loser!

the rumors are true (@ Neighbor from the 90′s) the underage babysitter affair, domestic violence, hiding money overseas. He doesn’t have anything to do wiht his oldest son becasue he is scared of him. This is a person that lacks a conscience with a genius IQ.

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Is Jason Hope (JAWA/Cylon) A Scam?

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