New Horizons' Possible Payoff Involvement

Federal Tax Payer Fraud: New Horizens, the world's largest computer training company may have paid the South Florida NAFTA Director for layoff leads worth ten thousand dollars per head.

I have read your articles on Wolfgang Sharnoff, the South Florida NAFTA Director who was recently caught selling layoff lists to undercover agents.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-329pileredfiles.story?coll=sfla%2Dnews%2Dbroward

I have some additional info I thought you may want to confirm and pursue. The following is solely my belief and opinion and each point should be researched carefully.

I believe you will find that New Horizons, the world's largest computer training company, has been covertly paying Mr. Sharnoff for the last several months. To date, Mr. Sharnoff has rewarded the Ft. Lauderdale New Horizon office with approximately $1,000,000.00 in business by referring the NAFTA layoff victims to them. Just last week, I believe you will find he delivered to New Horizons a check consisting of nearly $200,000.00 in federal tax dollars. In return, New Horizons paid him $150 per student (plus additional money for the purchase of the lists).

I believe you will find that New Horizons intentionally enrolled the layoff victims referred by Mr. Sharnoff in expensive, high-level engineering classes to maximize the drain on federal eligibily funds...whether or not it was a truly appropriate career path for them. Usually, it wasn't. I believe there was no interview process for such students. In many cases, these people would have been better served by a $300 class, but nonetheless...

I think you will also find that New Horizons raised their prices to the government so that their best selling engineering program totaled $9995, just shy of NAFTA's $10K/student cap. Check with the School Board and you will see their published tuition prices are normally considerably lower. (School Board Contact: Director: Sam Ferguson 850-488-9504).

I believe you will find that as a result of their clandestine deal with Mr. Sharnoff, New Horizons had full classes and a large waiting list to get in. I think you will find they are in the process of an instructor hiring spree and planning an upcoming move to a larger facility to accommodate the abundance of extra business.

Here is a link to see their current job openings:

http://www.newhorizonscareers.com/newhorizonscareers/search.shtml

Please note that the $200,000 sales person position includes a draw, incentives and commissions: all believed by me to be school board violations. Here is a link to a current ad on Monster.com for that same sales position:

http://jobsearch.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=13904504&col=&cy=US&brd=1&lid=378&fn=&q=account+executive&AVSDM=2002%2D03%2D04+09%3A20%3A00%2E000&CCD=my%2Emonster%2Ecom&JSD=jobsearch%2Emonster%2Ecom&HD=company%2Emonster%2Ecom&AD=http%3A%2F%2Fjobsearch%2Emonster%2Ecom%2Fjobsearch%2Easp%3Fcy%3DUS%26brd%3D1%26lid%3D378%26fn%3D%26q%3Daccount%2Bexecutive&Logo=1

I believe you will find that the New Horizon personnel who dealt directly with Wolfgang Sharnoff included, but was not limited to: Senior Account Rep: Mike Scantzoulis (954) 572-8600 x. 105 or (954) 315-2132 (Direct Line), his assistant: Andrea Miller (954)572-8600 x 112, the training manager, Jeff, and , among others, Jeff's boss. I believe you will also discover that the corporate New Horizons office in California knew or should have known of the clandestine Sarnoff relationship and benefited financially from the increased monthly royalties which were based on the Ft. Lauderdale office's gross volume. Since the corporate office periodically ranks the individual centers by gross, I believe it would have been hard for them to miss such a tremendous rise in ranking. Furthermore, I believe that the Miami and/or the West Palm Beach New Horizon franchisees were aware of the payoff situation and there exists a distinct possibility that Mr. Sharnoff may have even met with them as well.

Neither Mike nor Andrea of the Ft. Lauderdale office are licensed as agents by the School Board, yet they regularly attend unemployment office recruitment meetings to solicit prospects. Furthermore, I do not believe that they had licenses for each of the 50+ beginning, intermediate and advanced classes they taught. I believe the School Board requires that they do. Here is the list of their offerings to the Government. Their brochure lists even more.

http://www.myflorida.com/st_contracts/973890981/price31.htm

I think you will find that New Horizons was discounting classes and giving away free and reduced tuition classes to corporate executives--yet another violation of the School Board. Then too, ask about their "Club" policies which allows unlimited classes for a fixed annual price--yet another violation.

Want a refund? According to their main brochure, books are non-refundable after being opened . Opened? I suggest checking out a site called http://www.newhorizonssucks.net/ . Make sure to read the "Other Stories" section.

Working with Mr. Sharnoff, New Horizons coordinated the timing of their solicitation mailings so they arrived approximately two days after the NAFTA letter advising them of their $10K in training benefits. Disguised as a mass mailing, I believe you will find it was sent only to those on the NAFTA layoff lists they purchased from Mr. Sharnoff.

Also, I think it proudly identified New Horizons as NAFTA approved. Ask Mike for a copy. Also, you may want to ask him about the script I believe they would use when calling upon Mr. Sharnoff's lists of NAFTA layoff victims. I think they would then follow up with an email. Here's a excerpt:

"I am contacting you based on a recommendation from (the name of the former department supervisor).

Hello, my name is (New Horizons employee), and I head the IT Certification Training Initiatives that are supported by your benefits under the NAFTA program, here at New Horizons Fort Lauderdale...

Quite simply, your benefits allow for up to two years of unlimited technical and applications training, with no out of pocket expense. Instructor led training, lab work, course materials and exams are all included under the program...

Your opportunity to act, however, is very limited. Only those individuals that complete the registration paperwork by April 6th will be considered for a re-training program."

That's enough for now. To those who write back with details as to when the final story will appear, I may have further details to share. Please research this very carefully and report only the absolute truth.