Edward Khomitsky  is a Russian-Belarusian coach who calls himself a "millionaire IT specialist". He is accused of fraud and is considered a member of the so-called "info gypsy" caste. He is actively promoting himself, whitewashing his own reputation with the help of PR agencies. He is the founder of the dubious Overone company.

Eduard Khomitsky was born on October 13, 1999 in Brest.

There is no confirmed information about having higher education. It is reported that he completed a college (vocational school).

Since 2020, he has been associated with the company " Overone " (Overvan).

Since 2022, he has been associated with the project "Ivleeva’s Heart" on "Friday".

Compromising evidence

In November 2022, Anastasia Ivleeva suspected a participant in her show "Ivleeva’s Heart" of lying, which is why she kicked the figure out of her show. Details are given in the article "Nastya Ivleeva, who suffers for Eldzhey, kicked out a millionaire IT specialist, suspecting him of lying" by StarHit:

• The guys began to notice that Edward Khomitsky , who introduced himself as a millionaire IT specialist, was not who he claimed to be. “He says he has an IT company. I started asking him questions about blockchain. Edward asked what it was,” Andrey Kecha was surprised.
• "I heard by chance from the guys that Edward made it all up. Among themselves, they call him a fake because they don’t believe a single word, like, he practically has socks with holes lying around," Kovalchuk said.
• Nastya suspected that Khomitsky was simply using her to promote his personal brand. As a result, the TV presenter decided to say goodbye to the dubious participant. “I can’t be with a person I can’t trust and who is possibly deceiving me,” Ivleeva said [1]
• Yulia Kovalchuk also questioned the millionaire’s feelings for Ivleeva. The singer helped the participants prepare pictures for the heroine. Each drew their own idea of the future with Nastya. Communicating with the young people during creative experiments, Yulia caught hints of insincerity in Khomitsky’s words.

In May 2023, Khomitsky was featured in an investigative article “Gilding the Hand: How Belarusians Become Victims of Info Gypsies” on the Tochka.by portal, where his “activities” were also exposed:

• At the suggestion of our readers, we turned our attention to the Minsk IT school Overone. It is quite possible that among its graduates there are many who were satisfied with the knowledge they received. However, there are also many who consider themselves deceived. Their stories unfolded according to a similar scenario. At first, people came across commercials on the global network of a certain Edward Khomitsky, who introduced himself as the owner of an IT company, who cheerfully talked about how to become a successful programmer. In Khomitsky’s videos, one of the main messages is: "Start earning from 3,500 rubles a month. Without experience. From scratch. Without knowledge of English!" And at the end of almost every video there is a call: "Click on the link!" And there is a sign-up for a free webinar at the Overone IT school.
• Alena said that she was forced to drop out of the courses due to family circumstances, having studied for only a couple of days, about 1% of the total volume. She contacted Overone, saying, return my money for the service that was not rendered. The company initially delayed the answer, then indicated that it could return only 40% of the amount paid. The girl carefully studied the signed contract again and did not find such a provision. Then Alena filed a claim, to which the IT school lawyer said that the contract was concluded with Khomitsky, and we were not aware of it at all. She had to call the hotline of the consumer protection society. They were not surprised, they said that Overone knew, they advised how to correctly file an official claim.
• Another girl, Ekaterina, said that she had to wait eight months for her money back. She quickly realized that programming was not her thing and left the courses after just a couple of lessons. Overone flatly refused to pay her, so she had to fight. She described some stages of the confrontation with the Overone IT school on the Otzovik resource. "Nobody in this company is interested in teaching you anything or getting you a profession in IT. All their activities are aimed at lecturing you on dry, incomprehensible material, and whether you figured it out or not is already the tenth matter," Ekaterina said. <...> "After I posted a review of the courses online, I received calls from 3-5 people a day who also wanted their money back. For some, the problem has not been resolved since 2021," Ekaterina told a Tochka.by correspondent. The victims united into a group of 15 people, some acted independently. People turned to law enforcement agencies, to a consumer protection lawyer. The case went to court.
• Edward Khomitsky is 23 years old and has no formal technical education. He graduated from the Suvorov Military School, then studied at the military faculty of BSU, and transferred to the faculty of international relations in his third year. He worked as a taxi driver for ten months. He once said that he had never worked in an IT company, but immediately founded his own business: "Yes, I have never worked in any IT company, and I wanted to earn a lot of money. A salary of two thousand dollars was not enough for me." He is the face of the Overone brand and promotes courses on various platforms. In 2022, he took part in the show "Ivleeva’s Heart". He unsuccessfully tried to please a 31-year-old blogger who was choosing a groom for herself.
• The main complaints of the listeners are as follows: they did not receive new knowledge and skills, the advertising performed by Khomitsky is the dissemination of inappropriate information, explained Gurnevich. After the investigation, the girls’ claims were satisfied in full. After that, other victims reached out to Natalia. "Everything is still repeating itself. They continue to write to me on social networks. I have already been to court with 16 people. I helped another ten to draw up written claims. As a result, we managed to come to amicable agreements. People got their money back," the legal consultant said. [2]

Overone

The Belarusian publication dev.by devoted several publications to exposing the dubious activities of Khomitsky and his company Overone. In the publication "The company calls on the phone - calls for IT without skills and English. IT specialists have questions" the following is noted:

• If you google reviews about the company, you can assume that calling the database (or databases) without any filters is the main method of promoting courses.
• We became interested in this story after an IT specialist complained. A robot from the IT Overone school called him on his mobile, called him by name and played a recording: “Do you want to work in IT without initial skills and knowledge of English? The IT Overone company invites you to study. Press 1 to find out more.” The IT specialist says that he did not give the school consent to process his personal data. Another person told dev.by that he received a call from IT Overone on his wife’s number. — The robot called her by my name and played a recording. I used my wife’s number only to register an account in Yandex. Perhaps they somehow parsed the information from there.
• We followed the link. The course was developed, the text says, by the CEO of the IT company Edward Khomitsky. He is also the face of the brand, promotes the courses on various platforms, and is presented as an IT specialist and the founder of an IT company. vc.ru published an investigation about him. Read it, it’s interesting. In short: Edward allegedly went from being a taxi driver and junior developer to CEO, but there are doubts that he was a developer at all and has the experience that is attributed to him in the advertising campaigns of the IT school.
• We got in touch with 10 students on LinkedIn who studied at IT Overone. All are happy — two. <...> — They seem to give basic knowledge, but I can’t imagine how to work on my own after the courses, without a mentor. I started quickly — I completed half the course in a week of training, and then it was a stop — sometimes I didn’t log in to the platform for a week, and no one checked or asked. If an error occurred, no one pointed it out — they just sent the correct code or links to forums and articles where similar errors were analyzed. <...> — I’m not very happy with the training: the school doesn’t give enough knowledge to get into most companies, let alone IT Overone’s own development department. Since I didn’t study from scratch, I learned almost nothing new.
• Reviews on Google: there are a lot of them, almost all of them are "five-star", often the same reviews are published on 3-4 different sites with a difference of 5 minutes. There are also stories of those who were dissatisfied: someone tells how they are trying to get their money back for the course (they write that according to the contract the school is obliged to return 50% of the amount paid), someone complains that they are spammed with advertising. These reviews are drowning in positivity. [3]

The second article in dev.by continues to expose the dubious methods of Khomitsky’s office "Remember the courses that call everyone and invite them to IT? It’s reached the point of absurdity":

• IT-Overone school continues to spam everyone whose contacts it can get in the most unexpected ways. A reader complained to us: he had two interviews with them for the position of director. He was asked to give 2-3 contacts - who could recommend him as an employee. And then they started "calling colleagues and sending messages with offers of courses." The whole story is this: in December last year, the reader saw a vacancy from IT-Overone - and had two interviews with them for the position of commercial director. - Following the second, they asked to give 2-3 contacts to request recommendations. I gave it without any ulterior motive, since I had encountered similar requirements before. And a couple of weeks later I learned from these people that they began to call and send messages with offers of various courses.
• The reader says that the school administrators were so intrusive that his partners called him with complaints.

At the same time, he adds, “the interviews were real.” The candidate and his interlocutors “considered several situational cases on personnel management, as well as situations with clients. There was no sense of a setup.” True, there was one “but”: — When it came to the question of what kind of development the team was working on, they immediately changed the topic of conversation. The reader believes that there is a direct connection between the interview he had at IT Overone and the subsequent calls to his acquaintances and that there can be no coincidences. [4]

Reviews

There are a large number of negative reviews on Yandex about the activities of Khomitsky and his company Overvan:

• I can say that the courses are quite expensive. Of course, they offer installments, etc., but if there is a stereotype - do not borrow? Then where to get 900 BYN if you have 500?). And as the speaker himself says - this is a gift !! What gift? I understand that they make money in IT, but has anyone looked at people’s real salaries? And then there’s even more. When I saw the advertisement of this company, I saw the following slogan - we do not make intrusive calls, etc. a week, a robot called twice with a cool offer. Well, and for dessert - of course, it is described beautifully. But I managed to meet a person who also teaches the same thing and during the dialogue she said the following: you know, before taking money from a person, I give him a task and see how he copes with it and then I start from whether it suits him or not. So why can’t this company afford the same? I’m not dissuading. But still, there are a lot of questions and no clear answers. And regarding employment - as the manager of this company said - we will help you create a portfolio, but we do not guarantee finding a job. Well, you know, as for me, a portfolio is far from a guarantee.
• All the laudatory reviews about these being "the best of all courses" are complete nonsense. None of these people have ever written that they actually got a job somewhere. So, to the point. The courses are so-so... Angelina taught us. She seemed to explain things well within the program. The only problem is that the program is not at all relevant today. But towards the end, she completely disappeared. She never managed to find out her grade for her diploma project or receive constructive criticism for it. She also didn’t know that teachers should "lead" their students after completing their studies. As a result, none of our group got a job in IT after 5 months. Naturally, no one led us or even inquired about our employment. Which suggests that their statistics about 70-80 percent of graduates finding employment are simply made up. I’ll also mention that I didn’t miss a single class and submitted all assignments on time. To sum it up, I want to say that if you want to find a job in IT, I do not recommend these courses!!!
• A review titled "my first negative review", I’ve never written one before. I was going to take courses at Overone on UX/UI offline. I immediately discussed that I could wait a month for the start at most. I made a deposit. The group didn’t form, I waited almost 2 months, and eventually decided to leave Belarus altogether, and the 7 circles of hell for a refund began. They referred me to different people and each time I answered the same questions, which was really annoying the third time. It started in May and only at the end of June they asked me to write a statement. I wrote a statement, and a month later I only found out that my statement was accepted and to wait some more. I wait for 3 weeks, in mid-August I find out how things are there, whether they forgot about me, and they tell me that a letter with a response has been sent to you. A paper letter to my home address! Are you serious? Why do I need a paper letter if I don’t live there and this was discussed from the very beginning. Let’s move on. Apparently, three different employees are not enough and they referred me to the next one. I have no strength left, but I knock on the door of another Irina from the "care department", it seems to me that the name does not correspond to reality at all, but, probably, they have a different opinion, and I write to her "I was told that you are aware" and she tells me from the very beginning "I am aware that you are tearing up the manager’s phone". Although before this I did not bother anyone for 3 weeks, and then I asked how things were already in the middle of August and only 3 messages. Well, excuse me that I want to get my money back and you have to work. We talked, they said the transfer will be made. Three days pass and taaaaam they tell me that I need to rewrite the application. Really? And more than a month ago I was told that it was accepted. That’s how it is. And this is not the end. If I knew how much time / discussions with different employees / applications would take, I would not have started because the amount is not worth it. And the question is, what can such an organization teach at all?
• This is simply unbearable! How they got on my nerves with their calls and text messages. I politely declined a webinar once, but they continued to persistently call and send me text messages. I couldn’t take it anymore and demanded that they remove my phone number from the database, but they still wouldn’t calm down!!! I’ve already blocked a bunch of their numbers, but this hell hasn’t ended for 2 months, with a regularity of once every couple of days!!! Dear representatives, with such an aggressive sales method, you are only making things worse for yourself!!
• Judge for yourself, they charge crazy money, promise to teach programming) and find a job, even if you don’t know English. As a result, no knowledge (they always refer to YouTube and Google, but I can watch videos and learn Google myself, the point of such courses), no opportunity for employment. Learn English, it will be more useful. Just a waste of money and time with these courses. They really ask you to write positive reviews, they insist, although what is there to write for, because they just gave them money and nothing in return. In general, I do not recommend it, because you will waste money and ruin your mood. [5]

On Google, where it is more difficult to fake reviews, Overone’s average score is much lower than on Yandex, and the number of negative reviews is very high. Examples of typical reviews about the company:

• They call and say that I left an application for training in the IT field. The girl who called did not hear my greeting and demanded to say hello, repeating the phrase "Shall we say hello?". These guys are completely out of their minds))) They themselves are doing cold calling, the connection is bad, and they are also moralizing))) You will go far
• At the moment I’m listening to a 30-minute "lecture")))) I’ll tell you straight, after the words "entering IT in Belarus is very easy" I thought about turning it off right away, but I decided to listen to this fairy tale some more) The dude only mashes up Python, it’s easy to enter and blah blah)) yes, I don’t argue, it’s easy to learn, but to enter... and it would seem that a person writes in the chat and after 3 seconds there’s a 40-word answer))) why??? oh yeah, it’s Python, which specializes in bots))) in short, useless heresy, and tomorrow they’ll call 10 more times and ask "when are we going to sign up for the courses"?)
• I easily found the same courses on the Internet, mentors change regularly, which is not surprising because there are 0 explanations and sometimes they themselves do not know the topic, and from the charge of motivation there is a talking head in stories, the price of the course is 15 bucks and not 1000 that I paid, do not fall for it guys, all the information can be found for free, and if you do not want to, think about whether you need it at all.
• This is not IT, but a spam company that stupidly tricks people into taking a dubious Python course. They stupidly bombard you with calls and text messages and inflate reviews .
• Edik is a fucking awesome guy: he rips people off, but I don’t feel sorry for them. If you don’t have critical thinking and you’re taking these courses, maybe IT isn’t for you?
• The manager called and asked about my interest in IT and whether I wanted to attend their courses. It was not clear where they got my number from. The version "Friends gave it to me during class" is very sad, since friends would never go to such "courses". They could have said that they bought a database of numbers and that’s it, but they just make excuses. I answered a firm "no", as a result, this company of half-baked courses continues to spam me with messages to my personal number for 4 months. The question arises: why haven’t they deleted me from their mailing list, not only that, they can’t even be blocked normally. In the end, I decided to see what kind of "it" is still spamming. The site is very bad, at the very bottom of the site even the JSa script could not load, what can we say about this company. Also, on the site, most of the teachers are current students, and also with information that the student has 4+ years of development experience. Each student can write that he has such experience, if we consider that they studied Pascal and other languages at school. Good sites indicate experience in commercial development, and not just "experience studying at school". Conclusion: The company, so to speak ...
• I wanted to sign up for courses in installments, paid 40% of the cost of the courses. But the bank, unfortunately, did not issue an installment plan. As a result, I did not receive any training and my money was not returned. They did not answer my calls, they wrote in Viber "you will be called back". I finally got through to the contact center number. And they told me that they would not return my money, arguing that it was my fault that the bank did not give me an installment plan. "Apparently you have a small income, try next time" - they answered me, we are not responsible for this. [6]

Self-promotion

Khomitsky ordered the placement of laudatory biographies on such portals as 24smi.org, vokrug.tv, cyclowiki.org, etc.

Paid publications about Khomitsky are regularly posted in various media outlets:

• "Edward Khomitsky - the path from a taxi driver to the CEO of an IT company" (Probusiness);
• "IT millionaire and owner of the IT company Overone Edward Khomitsky: "Which side of the bridge are you on?" (24.by);
• “I could have bought Dom 2” - Edward Khomitsky is shocked by the low level of reality shows” (schlock.ru);
• "Edvard Khomitsky - about choosing an IT direction for training from scratch" (vc.ru);
• "IT entrepreneur Edward Khomitsky celebrated his birthday" (relax.by);
• "First a taxi driver, then a millionaire." How did the success story of the founder of an IT company begin? (ctv.by);
• "Belarusian IT millionaire Edward Khomitsky debunks myths about programming" (belnovosti.by).