I would strongly advise all who may come into contact with Corporate Funding (see below for details) and especially Mr. Al Hopkins, his assistants and co-workers, to exercise good judgment in any business dealings since it appears that Corporate Funding may be operating a scam designed to take money from legitimate investors, never do any real work, and keep the deposits.
Corporate Funding of Delaware, Chicago, Arizona and Boston also uses names such as corpfunding.com, Corporate 5 Funding, F5F, Fortune 500 Funding LLC, and variations thereupon. Their address
(1) Until about May was: Fortune 500 Funding, 75 Executive Drive, Suite 116, Aurora, IL 60504. Phone number in Chicago was/is 847-750-6124, and
(2) Now, supposedly is: 815 N Larkin Ave, suite 101, Joliet, IL 60435.
On December 29, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was executed between Mr. Al Hopkins (1 847 250 6769) of corpfunding.com (CF) and me, Davinder Athwal, oodaddy LLC. The purpose of this MOU was to define certain terms and conditions that would govern CFs efforts to secure a commercial real estate loan for a property I was seeking to finance the purchase of. Among other things, the MOU laid out certain parameters for the loan to be secured, and required a deposit of $9,500 for due diligence, appraisal etc. Unused funds were to be promptly refunded to me upon the closing, or termination of the MOU.
On February 4, I terminated the MOU in writing because of CFs gross failure to secure a suitable loan in a reasonable amount of time. List of CFs failings follows:
1. Almost a full month after the execution of the MOU, Mr. Hopkins assistant, Ms. Mary Wanji, was under the mistaken impression that I sought to refinance an existing loan.
2. We heard nothing from Corporate Funding and when inquiries were made, my representatives and I were berated by Mr. Hopkins as being amateurish and lacking in knowledge. His attitude was so hostile and accusatory that we had to hang up on him to stop the vitriolic stream of epithets and baseless criticism from Mr. Hopkins. Despite repeated, documented attempts to get a status update on the loan, Mr. Hopkins and Ms. Wanji failed to respond in a substantive manner.
3. CF did not submit a proposed loan for my review until January 31. This loan was not only well outside the parameters cited in the MOU (6% interest rate instead of 4.59%, $68,000 in fees instead of $37,000), but we soon learned that I was not even eligible for the proposed loan under Section 504 Small Business Administration (SBA) rules.
4. On the same day, Mr. Hopkins stated that if a second proposed loan were unacceptable to me, per the clearly delineated parameters in the MOU, the MOU would be terminated and he would immediately refund the Deposit.
5. On February 3, Ms. Wanji informed me that a second proposed loan was ready for my review. Ms. Wanji failed to send the said proposal. On the same day, Mr. Hopkins called me and told me that he would only send the proposed loan terms in writing if I agreed to them verbally.
6. Despite the preposterous nature of such a demand, I inquired about the basic details of the loan (e.G.interest rate, length of loan, points, etc.). Mr. Hopkins did not know these basic details and said he would get Ms. Wanji to get back to me.
7. The next day, after receiving no word from Mr. Hopkins or Ms. Wanji, I terminated the MOU and asked for a refund of my monies.
8. Mr. Hopkins told us that he had ordered a Risk Assessment but we never heard or saw any such assessment or the results of any such assessment. Our Inspection Period under our Purchase and Sale Agreement was running out and we desperately tried to find an alternate source of funding for the purchase. We simply did not have the time remaining under our Purchase and Sale Agreement and the Seller terminated our offer, causing us to lose an important investment opportunity. I had effectively wasted another $3500 on ALTA survey and Environmental report in the hopes of acquiring this loan.
9. On February 7, I responded by sending a letter to Mr. Hopkins, again demanding a refund of the Deposit since it was apparent that Corporate Funding never intended to fund the loan, but rather, it appears that their intention was to scam us out of $9500 and basically ignore our requests for the return of our deposits. Risk Assessment was never done.
10. I then had my attorney write a letter to Herb Hill, Mr. Hopkins attorney, whom he had referred to us, via certified mail, demanding the refund of the deposit. Despite repeated attempts to resolve the situation with Mr. Hopkins and his lawyer, Mr. Herbert Hill, I have received no response.
11. During the course of this transaction, no progress reports of any kind were ever provided by Mr. Hopkins or his assistants to me.
12. On July 3, Kane County Sherriff attempted to serve summons to Mr. Hopkins and found that they had moved 2 months prior, leaving no forwarding contact information.
13. I tried calling every one of their contact phone numbers including Mr. Hopkins Cell and found that all are no longer in service.
14. I then contacted his referee / colleague, Mr. Lane OBryon (of Commercial Lending Solutions, Tampa, 813 996 5776) and left a message. Mr. OBryon returned my call stating that he had just spoken to Mr. Hopkins and that Mr. Hopkins stated that he had returned my money well over 2 months prior. No such thing happened. Mr. OBryon gave me Corpfundings new address.
15. On July 23, Will County Sherriff attempted to serve summons to Mr. Hopkins at the new address and reported that office appears to be vacant.
16. Mr. OBryon attempted several times to get Mr. Hopkins to return my funds. Heres a list of responses (exact words) from Mr. Hopkins to Mr. OBryon:
A. Lane although this transaction was handled by kamaya s group I did confirm that the certified mail was signed off by some one on behalf of athwall, in other words the client is bringing
false hood, I am awaiting kamayas call back to confirm a check number as well as a copy of the signature July 6.
B. Lane I am out of town till the 12th, all your files are being handled by my manager. I am being updated dailey. Email is the easiest way to contact me. I check it every hour, will update you at the end of the week on your deals August 1.
17. Mr. Hopkins promised Mr. OBryon to provide documentation of certified mail and copy of the cashed $9500 check / signature as proof. Despite repeated requests from me and Mr. OBryon, Mr. Hopkins has not responded in any way whatsoever.in fact, he has stopped responding to me and Mr. OBryon altogether. As a result, until my deposit is returned or proof of such is provided, Mr. OBryon has suspended all business dealings with Mr. Hopkins and Corporate Funding; as of August 17, all future business dealings and as of August 20, withdrawn submitted but not in process transactions. I believe Mr. OBryon has done the best he can. This severance of business dealings has had no effect on Mr. Hopkins. It is obvious that neither a certified mail nor a check was ever sent. It is highly likely that he is in the process of scamming someone else as I write this.
It should also be noted that
I. The MOU contains several company names that do not actually exist. These names include corpfunding.com, Corporate 5 Funding, F5F, Fortune 500 Funding LLC, and variations there upon.
II. On at least 2 of our conference calls, with his colleague Lane OBryon present, Mr. Hopkins made derogatory and racial remarks about me. I ignored these writing him off as a very unprofessional person. Lane agreed with me.
III. Later he wrote an email threatening to sue me because I had breached our confidentiality agreement. No such thing happened. All confidential information involved was all mine my SSN, my financial info, etc. None belonged to him or his company. None of the facts stated in his 5 page email are true.in fact, most of the sentences do not make any sense.
IV. He also accused me of talking to the bank of the proposed SBA loan. Again I did no such thing. The bank called me and I immediately told them that the loan terms were way out of line and I was not interested.
Again, I would strongly advise all who may come into contact with Corporate Funding, and especially Mr. Al Hopkins, his assistants and co-workers, to exercise good judgment in any business dealings since it appears that Corporate Funding may be operating a scam designed to take money from legitimate investors, never do any real work, and then keep the deposits.
September 17.
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