- Report: #457433
Complaint Review: Asia Economic Institute - WorldEcon - AsiaEcon - Raymond Mobrez Raymond Mobarez Iliana Llaneres - Los Angeles California
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Asia Economic Institute - WorldEcon - AsiaEcon - Raymond Mobrez Raymond Mobarez Iliana Llaneres
www.asiaecon.org Los Angeles, 90025 California, U.S.A.
Phone:
310-8063000
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Asia Economic Institute - WorldEcon - AsiaEcon - Raymond Mobrez - Raymond Mobarez - Iliana Llaneres Unethical Practices, Employee Manipulation, Employee Rights Violation, Exploitation Los Angeles California
I was an employee of the Asia Economic Institute and a victim of their unethical, often illegal practices. Some of the practices are simply assennine, rather than illegal.
Here are a few of the practices which you can expect if you "work" for the Asia Economic Institute.
1. Underpaying for time worked - Raymond "refuses" to pay over-time, and yet expects his employees to arrive early and stay late. This is expected in a salary situation, however it is ILLEGAL in an hourly wage situation. If you show up for work 15 minutes late, they will dock your pay .25 hours. However, if you work late, do not expect overtime. This is illegal. It will happen to you if you work for them.
2. Deducting state taxes, but not paying the state - I was kept off of the payroll for as long as possible so Iliana could avoid paying out State Taxes. These, however, were deducted from my paycheck each pay period. At the end of the year, I owed the State extra money which had already been deducted & never payed to the state or me. They will cut every corner possible to not pay you.
3. Raymond promises pay increases verbally, but refuses to act on them. This is perhaps one of the worst things that can happen to a young recent grad. You are working hard, told you have value, promised a raise, and then an excuse is made.
The same thing happened when some employees were promised health insurance. The promise was not kept and excuses were made.
4. If you are hired, Raymond or Iliana may fire you for no apparent reason within 1 to 5 days. I saw this happen to accounting assistants, as well as content producers. Ask anyone who manages to stick around for a few months and they will back me up. Do not stop looking for work just because Raymond gave you an offer. He always offers everyone a job. He just doesn't keep you around.
After all this, I'd like to air more dirty laundry, because it makes me feel better after all the abuse I suffered at the hand of these robbers & cowards that run the Asia Economic Institute. I have no evidence as to the truth of any of these accusations except my own memory of conversations with Raymond, other employees, and my own perception of their actions.
Allegation #1 - Raymond explained to me that he hires & fires based on race, religion, gender, etc. Raymond told me girls are good for administrative tasks, especially Filipinas, because they do what they are told. Raymond told me not to trust Persians and Muslims. He told me the "blacks" only want to work in entertainment so you should not hire them. This is offensive and illegal. Obviously.
Allegation #2 - Raymond and Iliana are secretly married, but hide this fact very poorly. If you work there for a while and are trying to understand the nature of their relationship, it explains everything except for WHY they hide the nature of the relationship. Trust me, it makes no sense.
Allegation #3 - Iliana and Raymond *MAY* be using the Asia Economic Institute to funnel money out of Iliana's successful structured finance business, into Asia Economic Institute with the purpose to avoid paying taxes. I have no evidence of this, but after working there, you begin to wonder why the company exists in the first place.
Allegation #4 - Iliana and Raymond *ARE* absolutely batsh** crazy. They live in a strange fantasy land in which they are normal, decent people. This could not be further from the truth. Working together, running their business together, living together, the two have become so delusional they think its OK to abuse employees. Furthermore, they are germophobes who spend more time worrying about hand sanitization than managing their little project.
Please keep in mind that this is only one opinion. Many other opinions can be found by searching for Asia Economic Institute on this site if you would like other opinions.
Humblevictim
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.
Here are a few of the practices which you can expect if you "work" for the Asia Economic Institute.
1. Underpaying for time worked - Raymond "refuses" to pay over-time, and yet expects his employees to arrive early and stay late. This is expected in a salary situation, however it is ILLEGAL in an hourly wage situation. If you show up for work 15 minutes late, they will dock your pay .25 hours. However, if you work late, do not expect overtime. This is illegal. It will happen to you if you work for them.
2. Deducting state taxes, but not paying the state - I was kept off of the payroll for as long as possible so Iliana could avoid paying out State Taxes. These, however, were deducted from my paycheck each pay period. At the end of the year, I owed the State extra money which had already been deducted & never payed to the state or me. They will cut every corner possible to not pay you.
3. Raymond promises pay increases verbally, but refuses to act on them. This is perhaps one of the worst things that can happen to a young recent grad. You are working hard, told you have value, promised a raise, and then an excuse is made.
The same thing happened when some employees were promised health insurance. The promise was not kept and excuses were made.
4. If you are hired, Raymond or Iliana may fire you for no apparent reason within 1 to 5 days. I saw this happen to accounting assistants, as well as content producers. Ask anyone who manages to stick around for a few months and they will back me up. Do not stop looking for work just because Raymond gave you an offer. He always offers everyone a job. He just doesn't keep you around.
After all this, I'd like to air more dirty laundry, because it makes me feel better after all the abuse I suffered at the hand of these robbers & cowards that run the Asia Economic Institute. I have no evidence as to the truth of any of these accusations except my own memory of conversations with Raymond, other employees, and my own perception of their actions.
Allegation #1 - Raymond explained to me that he hires & fires based on race, religion, gender, etc. Raymond told me girls are good for administrative tasks, especially Filipinas, because they do what they are told. Raymond told me not to trust Persians and Muslims. He told me the "blacks" only want to work in entertainment so you should not hire them. This is offensive and illegal. Obviously.
Allegation #2 - Raymond and Iliana are secretly married, but hide this fact very poorly. If you work there for a while and are trying to understand the nature of their relationship, it explains everything except for WHY they hide the nature of the relationship. Trust me, it makes no sense.
Allegation #3 - Iliana and Raymond *MAY* be using the Asia Economic Institute to funnel money out of Iliana's successful structured finance business, into Asia Economic Institute with the purpose to avoid paying taxes. I have no evidence of this, but after working there, you begin to wonder why the company exists in the first place.
Allegation #4 - Iliana and Raymond *ARE* absolutely batsh** crazy. They live in a strange fantasy land in which they are normal, decent people. This could not be further from the truth. Working together, running their business together, living together, the two have become so delusional they think its OK to abuse employees. Furthermore, they are germophobes who spend more time worrying about hand sanitization than managing their little project.
Please keep in mind that this is only one opinion. Many other opinions can be found by searching for Asia Economic Institute on this site if you would like other opinions.
Humblevictim
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
BruinGrad
United States of AmericaSimilar experience
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, May 21, 2010
Hello there, fellow Asia Economic Institute EX-Employee. I too, shared a similar experience as you did while working at AEI... we may have even worked together at some point!
Aside from abruptly being told my "internship is over" with no explanation, I also experienced many of the employee abuses that you mentioned. Most notable was the illegal manipulation of paychecks... as somebody who kept track of my timesheet, I noticed that my paychecks were not consistent with the hours I worked. They frequently paid me for less hours than I worked. They also asked me to come during the weekend on a couple of occasions, when there was no AC in the building, and they never paid me OT for those days. On top of that, they kept adjusting the hourly wage I was being paid. Though we never signed a contract agreeing to employment at any specific rate, I thought it was unfair of them to manipulate my hours and wages so that they could pay me whatever they felt like.
Also, being an employee there was unrewarding. Though Raymond Mobrez was very open to having discussions about various topics, he frequently spoke to his employees with a condescending attitude. He gave use a lot of room to be self motivated, creative workers, but he never gave us what we needed to turn our ideas into a reality. As an employee who was hired into a position to analyze and make decisions, I felt completely discounted. He basically ignored what I had to say, and would go with his own decisions regardless of the approach I took to persuade him.
As far as your allegations:
#1 - He never mentioned anything about hiring based on race, religion or gender. However, he often tried to "explain" to me racial stereotypes that he seriously believed. For example "Asians are great for technical work, but they walk around like their head like zombies with their heads cut off so most of them aren't good for management."
#2 - Yes, absolutley true. I was good friends with their admin assistant and she told me a lot of mail comes with Iliana's last name listed as Mobrez. They also shared the same home mailing address. I understand they have the right to privacy, and this is none of our business as employees. However, they had a strange way of trying to cover it up - like they wanted us to believe that they were not married.
#3 - I believe that Raymond actually wants AEI to succeed. When he would talk about his goals with AEI, he had a very grandiose vision of himself as a web entrepreneur-slash-pioneer in global economics. Though I believe he has a good vision, he is severely misguided about the financial and organizational needs to achieve a goal of his size. He also has flip-flopped about whether he wishes to be a non-profit or for-profit institute.
#4 - They definitely live in a fantasy land. I would tell some stories, but they are unnecessary and may reveal my identity.
Buttalhurts
Los Angeles,California,
USA
Raymond isnt going to sucker me!
#3
Mon, August 17, 2009
Everyone who has been ripped off by this son of a b***h, fill out this forum, I am willing and already started filing a suit against this scumbag, I had contact with the BBB (Better Business Bureau) and will be forwarding every name I have in my list to make sure this b*****d pays.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dE1YMmg1RXRqYUF0SmhBenVYanE1NXc6MA
fill it out, ill send you a email, give you updates towards what has been completed so far.
Ex Aei Employee
Santa Barbara,California,
U.S.A.
100% the truth
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Mon, July 20, 2009
I back you up , they are indeed crazy as hell or evil as hell or both. I worked there for a while , and the day i stopped working there was one of the best days of my life. I hope they both end up in jail, or worse.
