Craig Harkey, of Hark Creative, HARK, Craig Harkey Designs, or one of many other names he has changed the company to due to lawsuits and check fraud, is a true con artist.
He has, since January of bounced uncountable paychecks to all employees (who have all quit or been 'laid off'), printed magazines from printers in town and run off without paying them, been evicted from his office space and parking garage for not paying rent, been sued for stealing intellectual property (a magazine) and most importantly, been sued for selling defunct software that does not belong to him in the first place. This, of course, all took place during and after his stint with Burnlounge, the infamous pyramid scheme out of Columbia in the summer of 2007.
He takes on large clients in his "advertising" business, promises them everything from appearances on Oprah to 1,000 free Webcams to get their business going. Funny that he should be in advertising, since he claims to have a degree in graphic design from USC in 1990. Graphic Design was not a major at USC until 2001. He was, in fact, a paper salesman for 15 years and woke up one day and decided he would be 'the ad-man.'
He hired a staff in August of bounced all but one of their paychecks, and lied to them about company ethics, sketchy business practices, insurance and clients. Clients and vendors were constantly storming in, wanting work or money, because they had been "charmed" by the snake, Harkey. Subsequently, the police arrived at least two times to deliver papers to him in the office. He now has a warrant out for his arrest.
After several background checks, it was uncovered that Harkey lied about a previous marriage, a DUI, several lawsuits, plagiarism in the magazine he stole from another, been sued twice by the IRS, been sued by Kinko's, former employees, and the list goes on.
This man is in debt to hundreds of people, lives out of his parents house at 40 and will do ANYTHING to stay afloat. He is a manipulator (and quite a good one) and a pathological liar. Do not believe anything he tells you. If you do work for him, he will not pay you.in fact, after I was laid off because the company was bankrupt, he offered a freelance writer we had on staff my position at the company... This is what he does. He cycles staffs through until they get so fed up with his fraudulent behavior, then hires a new staff to get a good month's worth of free work out of them.
All he hires is college interns, who he can run like a sweatshop, pay nothing and look at their thong underwear (which he mentioned several times).in addition, he made lewd and sexual comments about interns and other young college girls in the office, and wrote emails to friends saying he would hire women "only if they f*ed."
This "man" belongs nowhere but in jail. Do not trust him.
Jennycolumbia, South Carolina
U.S.A.
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