This may be the most scam of the year. The Ukrainian startup took money from the investor and fled to the USA

The fantasy of startups in burning out and extorting funds from investors is simply legendary. In the collective consciousness, the concept of starting a startup and attempting to strain someone on money is actually used almost like synonyms. And although this is an unfair vision, from time to time we hear news of spectacular scams. Ukrainian starter Andrei Golovchenko was accused of this.

Accusations come from his former investor Alexander Bornyakov. The men met in 2012. A year later Bornyakov decided to invest 20 thousand. dollars. in a Golovchenki startup named Treasurer (in the original: КАЗНАЧЕЙ). The project involved the creation of technology for online payments, about which information would be stored in the cloud. - In 2013, it was innovative - says Bornyakov quoted by the MC Today portal , which describes the whole scandal.

However, this is not the end. Another 60 thousand dollars added to the project WannaBiz business incubator. In return, investors received a total of 20 percent. shares.

The creator of "Treasurer" was to get a lot of freedom of action. Bornyakov claims that he behaved like a typical minority shareholder and was mainly limited to tracking reports. It resulted that the company did bring some profits, but everything was to remain in the project. Investors never saw a dividend.

The beginning of the conflict.

This happened until 2017, when Golovczenko went to study in the United States. - "Treasurer" almost disappeared from my eyes. As it turned out, at the beginning of 2017, the first problems began: Andrei stopped sending reports on a regular basis - recalls Ain.ua Bornyakov in a letter to the editor .

Golovczenko complained about depression and problems with the technical director Jarosław Budkowiec. The quarrels between the two men were to make Budkowiec disconnect servers for a while, and finally - after giving Golovczence access - he gave up his job.

Sam interested, however, saw it differently. In his opinion there was a big scam. At the beginning of 2018, Budkowiec noticed that although the startup's turnover is growing, his boss has no money to employ new people and invest in development. It must have aroused his anxiety. As a programmer with 10 years of experience, he earned only 5,000. hryvnia (currently about 700 zlotys, which is below the national average in Ukraine). He agreed, counting that it was a temporary situation.

Soon, Budowiec was to receive a letter from the Treasurer's American partners. It describes the secret work on the new payment system, which was to be better than the one he created himself.

The secret plan of Golovchenko.

The man claims that Golovczenko convinced his assistant to copy the code, and then created a new startup in the USA called Asset Payments. Next, the founder of the Treasurer was to transfer the largest clients to the new company. The turnover of the Ukrainian startup was running headlong, while Golovchenko, however, was mobbing investors that this was the result of a conflict with the programmer.

When Golovczenko himself decided to leave the deck, Bornyakov contacted Budkovec to get to know his perspective.

• At this point, it became clear that Andrei had deliberately misled us. When we asked what he left us, leaving the company, he showed us the Treasurer with several clients and a turnover of 300,000. UAH. We have already seen real reports and it was clear to us that it was a trick. Andrei gradually transferred customers to Assets Payments - again, Bornyakov's words for ain.ua.

Customers did not notice anything at first. The representative of the taxi company Bond said that from the very beginning he contacted only Golovchenko. For him, nothing except the company's name on the invoice has actually changed.

Codes with identical errors.

After this discovery, Budkowiec cut off his boss and left the company. He has sent the codes to the MC Today editorial office on which the solutions of both companies are based. It turned out that both versions have identical errors.

• Both companies have different target groups - Golovczenko defended at the time. The Treasurer's founder explained that while his first startup is a payment gate that helps Internet users in shopping, Asset Payments is intended for banks and large enterprises that run loyalty programs and issue payment cards.

Both Budkowiec and Bornyakow are now preparing suits against Golovczence. The latter countered that the treasury's American turnover was $ 2 million. monthly. Demands now 20 percent. shares from commission, which a startup takes for services (0.4 percent). Golovczenko, however, has no intention of paying. He claims that the new company is in no way affiliated with Bornyakov. I am not a lawyer, but I have the impression that this thesis will not pass before the court.

This may be the most scam of the year. The Ukrainian startup took money from the investor and fled to the USA