This company owes my family and I a total of $99,000 in investment funds they have yet to return to us.in April of this year, we decided to close our accounts and withdraw our funds according to terms of the Agreement with them. The company also owes back interest payments totalling over $6,000 thru July 1st. Our efforts to get our funds back has produced promises and excuses, but no results. Here is our story.
Back in December my wife, daughter and I decided to invest a total of $99,000 with Luminous based on an ad we saw in the LA Times newspaper. And a positive report from the Better Business Bureau. The funds were to be invested in various loan guiarantee programs with the Small Business Administration (SBA) with a monthly return of 2%. The payments begain in Feb.'07 and continues uninterrupted thru March '08. When our payments were missed in April, my daughter tried placing phone calls to their then Beverly Hills office, but found the phones to be disconnected. When she went there in person, she found the offices empty. We later found out they had moved to Sherman Oaks, but no notive of this change was ever sent to us. Not knowing where they went, I filed a complaint with the BBB. About a month later, I received an e-mail response from Anthony Hart, its managing director, informing us of his new location and asking why complained to the BBB. He told us the missed payments were due to a change in accounting firms and that they had misplaced our bank information. He told us that all investors were affected by the change, but that payments would resume in May with payments doubled up for the one missed in April. The one to my account was made up, but not to my wife or daughter's accounts.
In trying to collect our funds, we have visited his office twice, made numerous phone calls and plent of E-mails. Mr. Hart has madee many promises to return our funds, but tells us it takes time because money is tight now due to present economic conditions in the country. He has also told us of a multi-million dollar wire transfer which his bank has yet to release to him even though it has been over a month since the transfer. All of this is starting to ring hollow and make us wonder if any of this is true and he ever will return ou funds or is just stringing us along. The California Dept. Of Corporations has already filed several Cease and Refrain Orders against him and his companies which can be accessed on-line for those interested.
In summary, we just want our funds back so we can use them for other purposes and get on with our lives. The true nature of Mr. Hart's businesses are unknown to us right now. We have posed many questions to Mr. Hart about it in the past month and have gotten nowhere. He needs to be more honest with us about his company and why it is so hard to return our funds as promised in our Agreement.in the meantime, I would suggest that future investors with Mr. Hart be wary and aware that what he promises you might not materialize in the long run.
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