First, I did a little investigation on my own. What you see in the picture is what I found. And just for clarification, that is not my sign. And personally, the rocket-looking logo is a bit militaristic if you ask me. Poor form!

For starters, that name is pretty much impossible. The Chinese name has the characters for "China" in it, and for it to have that, it would both need to be a foreign-owned company and also be registered in Beijing at a national level. Not likely.

The people who I first suspected indeed ended up to be the ones behind this whole thing. They used to "work for" New Frontier Consulting. At that time (before I took over management of the company) they had an arrangement with the company, but never anything so clear as a contract. It was what I would refer to as a "good ol' boy agreement", that is, a purely spoken arrangement.

When I took over the company, they had a fairly developed set of services, but the only problem was that those services were completely independent from the company, its accountability structures, and authority. So, we amicably split ways and they started a company of their own. What I found out this week is that their new company, though legal, was started with a name which is almost identical to ours.

They added two Chinese characters to their name. How the Industry & Commerce Bureau allowed that is still a mystery, especially for a business which is so similar in description. So, the business name is legit, unfortunately, but the name they have been using, the name on that sign above, and the name that was even written in some of their contracts, was not their new name. It was New Frontier...the real one.

They immediately took down that sign you see above and tried to strike some "good ol' boy" deal with me. I very nicely explained to them that they should have expected these problems when they chose to start a company almost identical in name and function to mine, unless of course, they hoped to stay hidden from me forever, assuming the foreigner would not figure them out.

One negative to using such a similar name is that not everybody can tell you apart: for example, the companies with whom they do business. This explains their money showing up in my account. Oops! Obviously, we were alerted to their presence, unless it was just some companies who wanted to give us a donation out of the goodness of their hearts! So, in a way, they themselves alerted us to their presence.

And yes, once this mess was cleaned up, the money was returned to the sending companies. It is between those companies and this poser company to figure that all out.

For a couple years, I have referred to this group of folks as the "rogue office", not because they were bandits or doing anything wrong necessarily, but simply because they never really worked "with" or "for" New Frontier Consulting, but just did their own thing expecting zero accountability. Now, I am finding out just how "rogue" they really are!

And for those companies out there who work with them, sure, they do good work. But no, they are not a part of Liuzhou New Frontier Consulting, as you will see in the letters arriving in your mail boxes in the next few days!