My husband and I were trying to buy a second home in the summer of 2007. My husband worked with a guy who's uncle, Ted Alvarez, was an investor and a mortgage lender who could supposedly "help us". Ted Alvarez-who came to us highly recommended by my husband collegue and friend, put us intouch with Richard DeSouto of Tucson, Arizona from a company called Blue Sky Equity. Richard DeSouto said that there was a debt relief agency that could get rid of our credit card debt to help our debt to income ratio go down so we could qualify for a second home.
Richard DeSouto had us fill out a contract for J O'Neil and Associates. Then he instructed us to send a cashier's check for 4,000 dollars to a company that would process it. My husband and I were told that we should wait one month from submitting the contract and the money to receive our first credit report. We were told that once the report was received the process of disputing each credit card would have begun and that every month we would receive updated reports. We were told that JONA would be working with the FTC to revise the credit law.
To make a long story short, we never received a credit report from anyone and my attempts to get answers from Richard DeSouto and his contacts were vague and nebulous at best. Richard's only excuse for putting us with a company that was not following through was just "give it more time... Mr ONeil is working very hard to get everyone cleared by going in front of Congress." Then I was told that my case was not included with everyone elses because " a lady named Candice was very ill for a few months and couldn't get the paperwork through to congress in time for the FTC hearing..." I finally started doing some research about J ONeil and Associates and I found some very disturbing blog pages that revealed other people's similar stories about being scammed.
I also called the head of the FTC who had heard of Mr O'Neil, but was suprised that he had been implicated in his scam. He said there was no hearing scheduled with Mr O'Neil at all.
This is when I called the FBI in Sacramento, California to file my story. I do not know yet if J ONeil has been caught, but I hope he is brought to justice. I would love to know if anyone knows anything about this guy and whether or not anyone is on his tail.
In a time when a lot of investors are getting caught for scamming people out of their investment money, I am hoping J ONeil could enter into the spotlight too! I have come to terms with the fact that I will probably never see my money again. I just would like to see this guy behind bars and on the news so I can feel some closure.
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