I had the pleasure of meeting with Mark and Al at the begining of 2005. I met them in a very nice office in Atlanta, GA where we briefly went over my business proposal.By the time I got back home I had a LOI waiting for me to sign and send back so that we could begin the process of due dilligence and the funds would be available within 45 days!
I did everything that was asked including sending them the funds for due dilligence. Then I paid for two airline tickets along with 1 week in the Bahamas for 3 hotel rooms at $195 each night taxes. Well for one thing, they were 5 days late getting there so we had to extend our trip and pay for rooms again. This of course cost more.
When we got home, it was really frustating to find out that our accounts in the Bahamas could not be opened for one reason or another... So we began the process of getting things filed in Manila. This took another 5 months! Then at the last moment the location changed again and we found ourselves in Cyprus (at the tune of another $15,000, plus travel expenses).
The country was beautiful... An we should know because we had 3 days to kill while we waited for the paperwork to get completed this time. (It was supposed to be ready when we got there). So the last 2 days of our scheduled trip we got the bank accounts opened (using a "shelf corp") and we were set... Only then we find out that the funds can't be transfered until the "sheld corp" name matched our company name. So again we wait... This time for about 3 weeks. Once this is complete we wait and wait and wait... Still nothing.
Then we are informed that something went wrong with the transfer and nobody knows what happened! OK< so I can buy this for about 24 hours then I begin to ask more questions, they are never available and my questions are unswered, and according to them I am harrassing the staff! Who do these guys think they are! Their communication skills are zero and after they get you on the hook they are no longer informative! What an idiot I turned out to be!
Anyway, so as I am harrassing the staff, I am finally asked for another $20,000 to complete the deal. So if the problem has been on their end, why am I paying for their mistake! So I aske them this and now no one is answering the phones or emails. I find this very interesting... It wasn't until after all of this that we found your web site... It would be nice to be able to help others not fall into this trap. Down now approx $100,000, our home, our jobs, our credit and our pride, we must begin again. How do we help the next saps that will surely fall into this same trap?
Moses
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