Husband and Wife team Jeff & Sofia Kaller through their real estate company Golden Gate Funding LLC (GGFD) started an affiliate program promising profit sharing on distressed property deals marketed for and brought in by members. This program was described as a bulk note buying venture, a big move from doing what used to be their primary business, short sales. Affiliates were either charged a monthly fee or one so-called "lifetime" fee. I was charged the one time fee of $3,000.in addition, all marketing costs were borne by the affiliates, who were encouraged to keep spending time & money to bring in deals for stacking into bulk note negotiation packages.
I became a member in April had ordered leads from them for a fee, did marketing via direct mail & secured one deal, a Chase loan, to submit. Along the way I was starting to have doubts and concerns about the legitimacy of their program. For one, in order to suck affiliates in to spending their money up front, it was sold as something that GGFD already figured out & knew how to do, had the relationships for negotiating, funding, and closing these deals. It turns out they did not. I was also told by "Lenny Reeb" the go to guy to get signed up that deals submitted would only take 60-90 days to close, & could be flipped to institutional investors rather than sold retail, so it was so easy to sell them. I asked even for Hawaii? Because I live in Hawaii. Anywhere in the country, he says. Turns out later I'm told no, investor they work with will not do Hawaii properties. And in reality some early bulk packages were in queue for 6-9 months & still had not closed, so it was clear I was fed a bunch of sweet talking BS to that they could get my $.
Not long after finally getting word that Hawaii props could not be flipped to investor, I asked for my money back, to Jeff Kaller, on the phone, in person. I was told the only way to get my money back was to be paid out a portion of a deal that I turned in & got closed. Meanwhile now it's August and an initial Bank of America package supposedly submitted in the beginning of the year still had not closed. I believe the only thing they've managed to pull off is a few high-end props with single note, or "one-off" deals for Chase, whom they supposedly established a key contact for.
Fearing for my client, the homeowner on the note for the deal I submitted, I convinced him to cancel out of the note-buying program & then list as a regular short sale, as I am also a realtor. I am now negotiating on his behalf as a short sale.
Jeff & Sofia, this guy Lenny Reeb, & possibly the coaches on their team are crooks, front loading a huge amount of affiliate fee money and marketing fees in order to finance the program, and use for who knows what else. The program was over-hyped, and affiliates who did their requested work to bring deals in were never compensated for their money, time & effort. I only had 1 deal, but I know others who had several, and probably put in a lot more time, blood, sweat, & tears than I did. To make matters worse, home owners were made to believe this option was "so much better" than a short sale, and strung along at the same time the affiliates were. Jeff is a slick talking scam artist, and what makes this even more hard to believe is they were backed by other coaches & real estate experts on their team that seemed so real & legitimate.
Why has there been so few complaints? No law suits? A BBB A-rating? I just now checked my affiliate website link, it for the first time it appears to be down, I suspect they have already taken down their affiliate website & are preparing to skip town & disappear... I would like to see some type of class action lawsuit against these criminals! In addition to filing a complaint with BBB, I would any other suggestions on what can be done to get my money back or at the very least expose these crooks & bring them to justice!
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