We met Rod Rieman of Innovative Financial in May through a mutual friend and investor with him.
He proposed many 'schemes', one of which was DNE. On March we invested $52,000. With them and received money for about a year when everything quit.
Mr. Rieman said that we were going to be bought out and suggested that we replace it with Z-Touch from Las Vegas and he promised that he would make good if we didn't get our money from DNE for any reason.
We took a home equity loan out as he had just sold us $52,000. With Bluko from Las Vegas also, and we told him we couldn't afford to do this at this time with my husband being on worker's compensation and we needed to complete another business transaction we had going on right now. That's when he promised he would make good on the DNE for us to feel comfortable in investing another $52,000.in Z-Touch Systems, Inc.
We got payments from Z-Touch for about one year and they quit. We talked to Michael Crook and he promised things would be getting better and our payments would start again, which in fact they never did.
Several months after the checks stopped, we received a call from the FBI and Illinois securities investigators. Michael Crook and Rod Rieman were being investigated for fraud.initially we were assured by Rod Rieman that our ZTouch and Bluko funds were safe and payments would resume soon, including the overdue amounts. He told us the investigation was due to funds being taken from one account and used to pay debts on another account, but Michael Crook was cooperating with the authorities and would reimburse the misappropriated funds quickly.
We were assured many times (both verbally and by email) by Rod Rieman and Michael Crook that our funds were safe and payments would be made up. About the time that the Court ordered Michael Crook and Rod Rieman to cease and desist in Illinois, the office in Las Vegas began to distance themselves from ZTouch, claiming no affiliation. They have repeatedly said that Crook has nothing to do with ZTouch despite court documents which show Crook as the President of ZTouch.
They continue operations as Bluko but despite assurances that our Z-Touch and Bluko investments would be refunded, it does not appear they will do so without legal action.
We had called Michael Crook again to tell him that he and his company were in default according to the Z-Touch contract and in Oct. Of 2006 Michael Crook and his associate, John Small, drew up a signed contract in which they would make two payments to us to fulfill the contract in full. Those dates came and went and we received nothing.
We have never heard from Michael Crook or any other Z-Touch or Bluko employees since.
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