In early June I heard a radio advertisement for a new type of investment that would allow you to make an income of on average $1,200 per month and up to $11,000 per month with a proven method involving sweepstakes machines. I was very interested as I had seen sweepstakes businesses around the city that seemed to always be full of patrons.
I called the phone number listed on the advertisement at 1-877-85-Sweep and spoke with a representative who explained the program in detail to me. For an investment of $4997 for the purchase of a single sweepstakes machine, I would receive a portion of the monthly profit of the machine and another portion of the profit would go to charity. The company would take care of everything for me including the placement of the machine in a location that insured profitability, staffing of the location and servicing of the machine.
The representative also invited me to visit their website of http://www.sweepstakesincome.com / and sent me a pdf document authored by Ephren Taylor, detailing how the proven system works and providing evidence of past profits of machine placed in Rolesville, NC.
I did some research on the company which was brand new and so I couldn't find much about them. However, the mother company City Capital Corporation was not new and upon my research seemed to be a very reputable publicly traded company owned by a reputable entrepreneur by the name of Ephren Taylor. Ephren Taylor's name was on all of the advertisements and documents sent to me and so I developed trust in this company. I paid the $4997 over the phone by credit card and received and overnighted contract that guaranteed that my sweepstakes machine would be placed within 45 days but I was told verbally that it could take up to 60 days. I would start receiving a check about 30 days after the machine was placed and monthly from then on. The contract also guaranteed my money back if I was not satisfied with my profits in 12 months. I was told that within the first 12 months if my machine did not make a good profit of at least $300 per month that they would move the machine to another location so that I could make the money the type of money that I was expecting.
After 45 days, my machine had not been placed and I called my representative who referred me to a manager who told me that there had been some delays beyond their control and that my machine was guaranteed to be placed by 60 days which was what how long they had up to place it. I told her that my contract said 45 days though but I would give them up to the 60 days since they had said that verbally. I also asked her would she send me my money back if it wasn't placed in 60 days. She said yes but that it would never come to that since she knew that they would have it placed. She said that she would call me when it was placed. I never heard from that manager again. I called them back at their customer service number of 1-888-558-7460 well after the 60 days and spoke with another manager by the name of Ronald Wynn who apologized for my delays. I asked him for a refund and he said that he would send me a document that I had to sign to officially request a refund. I asked him how long it would take to receive the refund and he said no more that 2 weeks. I never received the form from him. I called Mr Wynn back at the number that he had given me that was supposed to be his personal line. The phone line never took me to a person and would just hang up on me. On day 98 post purchase of the machine I sent email to Mr. Wynn at the email address that he had given me to serve as a written request of a refund. I didn't receive a confirmation that he had accepted my email so I sent another email and on day 100 sent a certified letter to the address that I sent my signed contract, requesting either a full refund or interest payments from the time my machine should have been placed up until the time machine is actually placed. The post office could not confirm delivery and the letter was eventually sent back to me as unable to find.in the meantime, I received a letter from Clean Sweeps acknowledging delays in placement of many peoples machines and stating that if our machines were not placed in 45 days that they would send up 10% interest on our investment amount until it was placed. I was able to finally reach Mr Wynn by calling the customer service number and complaining. He stated that I would be eligible to receive the interest payment and that he would speak with Ephren Taylor to determine when I would receive it and for how much since at that point it had been 120 days post purchasing the machine. He didn't call me back with an answer. I called him back through the customer service line after a week and he said that I would have to wait the full 45 days to receive the interest payment but that he thought my machine would be placed before the 45 days. I asked him would I still receive some compensation in at least $500 for the wait even if it was placed within 45 days and he said that that sounded reasonable but he would call me back after speaking to Ephren again. He never called me back. I called again after the 45 days since I had received the letter regarding the interest payment and there was an automated message saying that if I was a Clean Sweeps investor that I would have to call another number 1-877-367-1463. This number gave an automated message saying that it is Sweep Royalties and gave me an option to speak to someone if I was a Clean Sweep investor. I had to leave a message and was called back later by a man named Scott. He said that they had taken over Clean Sweeps and would be responsible for placement of my machine now since Clean Sweeps had failed to do so. He said that I would have to sign over responsibility of my machine to them though.
I do not want to go any further with Sweep Royalties because all I know I could be signing over any chance of getting my money back through the legal system. I now know that I have been scammed. This scam is very similar to another that has happened a little over a year ago. See http://scamfraudalert. Wordpress.com/09/21/us-accuses-two-men-of-80-million-atm-ponzi-scheme/
I have since found out that Ephren Taylor and City Capital Corporation has been involved in scamming many other people He is also involved in litigation in another state. See http://www.ilsos.com/departments/securites/administrative_actions/June/ephrentaylor_noh. Pdf. He left City Capital Corporation in mid November.
If you or anyone that you know has been scammed by Ephren Taylor, Clean Sweeps Holdings Groups or City Capital Corporation please reply. Know that there are others out there like you and as a group we can fight against them to get justice.
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