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GREENSBORO — A reported Greensboro cleaning company has closed and its owners are believed to have left town after accusations they defrauded job applicants out of hundreds of dollars by promising jobs that never existed, police said.

Police believe more than 100 people applied to work for Spic N Span Cleaning Services at 2627 Grimsley St. near High Point Road since at least January.

The company posted fliers at the Greensboro Urban Ministry and winter emergency shelters in the area over the past two months looking to hire about 150 workers and advertising jobs at $9 an hour.

Police believe hundreds of applicants came, filled out paperwork, gave their personal information for a background check and took a 300-question test about janitorial work.

Once hired, they were required to pay $55 — cash only — for two to four uniforms and a pair of boots.

The uniforms never came; the workers never received starting dates.

The reported owners of the business — Latoya S. Myers and Angela Carter — are nowhere to be found, said Greensboro Detective D.A. Smith .

“We don’t know what their real names are right now,” Smith said. “It appears as if they have left town. They were staying in motel rooms, but we can’t locate them anymore.”

Police detectives visited Spic N Span on Thursday and talked with Myers and Carter to get more information after the News & Record inquired about fraud reports related to the business.

Since then, most of the information they received from Myers and Carter has since proved to be false, including driver license numbers. Phone numbers they gave have since been disconnected, Smith said.

“They also haven’t paid their rent according to the (landlord). And he’s since locked them out of the building,” Smith said.

No charges have been filed in the case thus far, and it is unclear exactly how many people have been victimized.

Spic N Span also claimed to police and others to have a pending contract to clean the Koury Convention Center once the ACC basketball tournaments ended at the Greensboro Coliseum. That was false.

“We have no contracts with anybody — we are entirely self-sufficient,” said Mo Millani, executive vice president for Koury Corporation. “We hire our own people to clean our own mess.”

Reached by phone last Thursday, Myers said, “Whatever it is, it’s not true. We have our lawyers looking into this, and I was told not to speak to anyone. You have a great day,” before hanging up. Carter also claimed their company was legitimate and said they were waiting for another contract to expire before workers could start.

“I paid my $55, too, and if I thought the company was bad, I would have done the same thing (and gone to the police),” Carter said.

The phone number at which the two women were reached last week was disconnected Tuesday, as was a South Carolina-based cell phone number listed on a Greensboro business license.

Anthony McPherson, 20, said he was hired by the company on Jan. 28 and hoped to make some extra money to pay rent while he attends college.

“We had to go to meetings and things, take tests and give copies of our IDs and Social Security numbers,” said McPherson, who paid the $55.

“They kept telling us we would start in one week. And every time we were set to start, they would tell us we needed more information to give them,” he said.

“They just kept giving us the run around.”

After going weeks without starting work, McPherson this week called the only person with the company he had a phone number for — a man named “David,” who was supposed to be his shift leader.

“The one thing he said was 'lose this number,’” McPherson said.

Other applicants said they never received direct answers to their questions about the company and its clients. Others said the company wanted a drug test on-site instead of at a laboratory, and representatives didn’t take clothing sizes for people who paid for uniforms.

Will Howard, an employment specialist at the Interactive Resource Center, a daytime center for the homeless, has looked into Spic N Span for the past two weeks. Thus far, he has found more than a dozen people at area homeless shelters who paid the company and received nothing.

“This is the group the con artists will target because they are easy prey,” Howard said. “They are taking advantage of people who can’t afford to be taken advantage of.”

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com